FRED  M.   DEWITT 

BOOKSELLER 
62O     FOURTEENTH     ST. 
OAKLAND  CALIF. 


•p     /*  0 

l&TrfaM^^ 
£M 


THE  TEST  OF  SCARLET 
T^omance  of  Reality 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

LIVING  BAYONETS:  A  RECORD  OF 
THE  LAST  PUSH 

OUT     TO     WIN:    THE     STORY    OF 
AMERICA  IN  FRANCE 

THE  GLORY  OF  THE  TRENCHES 
CARRY  ON:  LETTERS  IN  WARTIME 
SLAVES  OF  FREEDOM 
THE  RAFT 

THE  GARDEN  WITHOUT  WALLS 
THE  SEVENTH  CHRISTMAS 
THE  UNKNOWN  COUNTRY 
THE  ROAD  TO  AVALON 

FLORENCE  ON  A  CERTAIN 
NIGHT 

THE  WORKER  AND  OTHER 
POEMS 


THE 

TEST  OF  SCARLET 

"Romance    of    T^eality 


BY 

CONINGSBY  DAWSON 


NEW  YORK:   JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 

LONDON:    JOHN   LANE,    THE   BODLEY  HEAD 
MCMXIX 


COPYRIGHT, IQIQ,    BY 
INTERNATIONAL    MAGAZINE    COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,    1919 
BY    JOHN    LANE    COMPANY 


'•••H.IMPTOH -PRESS 
NOHWOOD-M  ASS-WS-A 


CONTENTS 
BOOK  I 

PAGE 

THE  INDIGNITY  OF  NOT  DYING 7 

BOOK  II 
THE  MARCH  TO  CONQUEST 65 

BOOK  III 
INTO  THE  BLUE 177 


2135081  ' 


BOOK  I 
THE  INDIGNITY  OF  NOT  DYING 


THE 

TEST   OF   SCARLET 


THE  raid  is  over.  The  frenzied  appeal  of  the 
Hun  flares  has  died  down.  Flares  are  the 
deaf  and  dumb  language  of  the  Front.  Sometimes 
they  say,  "We  are  advancing";  sometimes,  "We  are 
beaten  back."  Most  often  they  say,  "We  are  in 
danger;  call  upon  the  artillery  for  help."  Tonight 
they  seemed  to  be  crying  out  for  mercy  —  speaking 
not  to  friends,  but  to  us.  We  were  silent  as  God, 
and  now  they  too  are  silent. 

In  the  welter  of  darkness  one  can  still  make  out 
the  exact  location  of  the  enemy's  front-line  by  the 
glow  of  his  burning  dug-outs.  Our  chaps  set  them 
on  fire,  standing  in  the  doorways  like  avenging 
angels,  and  hurling  down  incendiary  bombs  as  he 
tried  to  rush  up  the  stairs.  A  horrid  way  to  die,  im- 
prisoned underground  in  a  raging  furnace!  Yet 
at  this  distance  the  destruction  looks  comfortable 
as  the  reflection  of  many  camp-fires  about 
which  companions  sit  and  warm  their  hands.  The 
only  companions  in  those  trenches  now  are  Corrup- 
tion and  his  old  friend  Death. 

I  can  see  it  all  —  the  twisted  terror  of  the  bodies, 
the  mangled  redness  of  what  once  were  men.  I  see 

9 


io          THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

these  things  too  clearly  —  before  they  happen, 
while  they  are  happening  and  when  I  am  not  there. 
It  is  only  when  I  am  there  that  I  do  not  see  them, 
and  they  fail  to  impress  me.  It  was  so  tonight  as  I 
crouched  in  my  observation  post,  my  telephonist 
beside  me,  waiting  for  the  show  to  commence.  As 
the  second-hand  ticked  round  to  zero  hour,  I  had 
an  overpowering  desire  to  delay  the  on-coming  de- 
struction. I  peopled  the  enemy  line  with  imaginary 
characters  and  built  up  stories  about  them.  I  pic- 
tured the  homes  they  had  left,  the  affections,  the 
sweethearts,  the  little  children.  God  knows  why  I 
should  pity  them.  And  then  our  chaps  —  they  are 
known  personalities;  I  can  paint  with  exact  pre- 
cision the  contrast  between  what  they  are  and 
what  they  were.  I  see  them  always  with  laughter 
in  their  eyes,  however  desperate  the  job  in  hand. 
Their  faces  lean  and  eager  as  bayonets,  they  as- 
semble in  some  main  trench,  as  likely  as  not  face- 
tiously named  after  some  favorite  actress.  On  our 
present  front  we  have  the  Doris  Keane,  the  Teddie 
Gerrard  and  the  Gaby.  A  sharply  whispered  word 
of  command!  They  move  forward,  shuffling  along 
the  duckboard,  come  to  the  jumping-off  point  and 
commence  to  follow  the  lanes  in  the  wire  which 
lead  out  from  safety  across  No  Man's  Land.  They 
crouch  like  panthers,  flinging  themselves  flat  every 
time  a  rocket  ascends.  Within  shouting  distance 
of  the  enemy,  they  drop  into  shell-holes  and  lie 
silent.  All  this  I  see  in  my  mind  as  I  gaze  impo- 
tently  through  the  blackness.  My  turn  comes  later 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET          n 

when  the  raid  is  in  full  swing;  it  consists  in  direct- 
the  artillery  fire  and  reporting  to  the  rear  what  is 
happening. 

I  consult  the  illuminated  dial  of  my  wrist- 
watch — five  seconds  to  go.  Some  battery,  which 
has  grown  nervous,  starts  pooping  off  its  rounds.  A 
machine-gunner,  imitating  the  bad  example,  com- 
mences a  swift  rat-a-tat- tat:  Destiny  demanding  en- 
trance on  the  door  of  some  sleeping  house.  In  the 
wall  of  darkness,  as  though  a  candle  had  been 
lighted  and  a  blind  pulled  aside,  a  solitary  flare 
ascends  —  then  another,  then  another.  North  and 
south,  like  panic  spreading,  the  illumination  runs. 
With  the  clash  of  an  iron  door  flung  wide,  all  our 
batteries  open  up.  I  look  behind  me;  flash  follows 
flash.  The  horizon  is  lit  up  from  end  to  end.  The 
gunners  are  baking  their  loaves  of  death.  The  air 
is  filled  with  a  hissing  as  of  serpents.  Shells  travel 
so  thick  and  fast  overhead  that  they  seem  to  jostle 
and  struggle  for  a  passage.  The  first  of  them  ar- 
rive. So  far  no  eye  has  followed  their  flight.  Sud- 
denly they  halt,  reined  in  by  their  masters  at  the 
guns,  and  plunge  snarling  and  golden  on  the  heads 
of  the  enemy.  Where  a  second  ago  there  was  black- 
ness, a  wall  of  fire  and  lead  has  grown  up.  Poor 
devils!  Those  who  escape  the  shells  will  be  de- 
stroyed by  bomb  and  bayonet.  Pity  there  is  none; 
this  is  the  hour  of  revenge.  We  shall  take  three 
prisoners,  perhaps,  in  order  that  we  may  gather  in- 
formation, but  the  rest.  ...  Our  chaps  have  to 
think  of  their  own  safety.  There  is  only  one  com- 


12  THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

pany  in  the  raid,  consisting  of  not  over  a  hundred 
men.  They  might  easily  be  surrounded.  Their 
success  depends  on  the  element  of  surprise  and  the 
quickness  of  their  get-away  when  they  have  done 
their  work.  If  they  took  too  many  prisoners  they 
would  be  hampered  in  their  return.  If  they  left 
any  of  the  enemy  alive  behind  them,  they  would  be 
fired  on  as  they  retired.  So  the  order  is  "No  quarter 
and  kill  swiftly." 

Now  that  the  attack  has  started,  I  cease  to  be 
concerned  for  the  Hun:  all  my  thought  is  for  our 
chaps.  I  know  so  many  of  them.  Silborrad,  the 
scout  officer  of  the  nth  Battalion  is  there;  a  frail 
appearing  lad,  with  the  look  of  a  consumptive  and 
the  heart  of  a  lion.  It  was  he  who  with  one  ser- 
geant held  up  sixty  Huns  at  Avion,  driving  them 
back  with  bombs  from  traverse  to  traverse.  Bat- 
tling Brown  is  in  charge  of  the  company;  he's  the 
champion  raiding  officer  of  our  corps  and,  with  the 
exception  of  the  V.  C.,  has  won  every  decoration 
that  a  man  can  earn.  Curious  stories  are  told  about 
him.  It  is  said  that  in  the  return  from  one  raid  he 
had  brought  three  prisoners  within  sight  of  our 
lines  when  suddenly,  without  rhyme  or  reason,  he 
lined  them  up  and  shot  them  dead.  The  moment  he 
had  done  so  he  fell  to  weeping.  This  particular 
raid  had  been  put  on  to  gain  identifications  of  the 
enemy  Division  that  was  facing  us.  By  killing  his 
prisoners  he  had  failed  in  the  purpose  for  which 
the  raid  had  been  planned.  You  cannot  wring 
answers  from  the  dead.  Having  seen  his  men 


THE    TEST   OF   SCARLET          13 

safely  back  into  our  trenches,  he  set  out  alone 
across  No  Man's  Land.  What  he  did  there  or  how 
he  did  it,  he  has  never  told  to  anyone;  but  by  dawn 
he  came  padding  back  through  our  wire,  driving 
three  new  prisoners  in  front  of  him.  For  every  Hun 
he  shoots  he  makes  a  notch  in  the  handle  of  his 
revolver.  He  has  used  up  the  handles  of  three  re- 
volvers already.  He's  tall  and  slim  as  a  girl,  with 
nice  eyes  and  a  wistful  sort  of  mouth.  When  he 
came  to  the  war  he  was  barely  eighteen;  today  he's 
scarcely  twenty-one.  War  hasn't  aged  him;  he 
thrives  on  it  and  looks,  if  anything,  more  boyish. 
It's  only  in  a  fight  that  his  face  loses  its  brooding 
expression  of  thwarted  tenderness.  Of  a  sudden  it 
becomes  hard  and  stern  —  almost  Satanic.  There 
never  was  such  a  man  for  clutching  at  glory. 

And  then  there's  big  Dick  Dirk.  When  he  first 
joined  our  Brigade,  he  got  the  reputation  for  being 
yellow  because  he  talked  so  freely  about  being 
afraid.  He  has  no  right  to  be  in  the  raid.  It  isn't 
his  job;  he's  supposed  to  be  deep  underground  in 
the  Battalion  Headquarters'  dug-out,  carrying  on 
his  duties  as  liaison-officer.  None  of  the  artillery 
know,  except  myself,  that  he  intended  to  go  over  the 
top  with  the  infantry  tonight.  When  our  Colonel 
learns  of  his  escapade,  he'll  give  him  hell. 

Dick  is  six-foot-three,  slow  in  speech,  simple  as  a 
child  and  so  honest  that  it  hurts.  He  stoops  a  little 
at  the  shoulders,  falls  forward  at  the  knees  and  is  as 
gray  as  a  badger.  His  expression  is  worn  and 
kindly,  and  his  lower  lip  pendulous.  You  would  set 


14          THE   TEST   OF    SCARLET 

him  down  as  stupid,  if  it  were  not  for  the  twinkle  in 
his  eyes.  I  don't  think  Dick  ever  kissed  a  girl;  he 
would  not  consider  it  honorable  and,  in  any  case, 
holds  too  humble  an  opinion  of  himself.  Since  he's 
been  at  the  Front  he's  managed  to  get  engaged  to 
one  of  his  sister's  school-girl  friends.  She's  a  Bra- 
zilian. He  knows  nothing  about  her,  has  never 
seen  her,  but  like  all  of  us,  dreads  the  loneliness  of 
"going  West"  without  the  knowledge  that  there  is 
one  girl  who  cares.  She  started  the  friendship  by 
adding  postscripts  to  his  sister's  letters.  -Then  she 
asked  that  he  would  send  her  a  photo  of  himself. 
For  some  time  he  dodged  her  request,  and  after- 
wards spent  weeks  of  wracking  nervousness  lest  his 
looks  should  fall  below  her  standards.  Now  that 
he's  engaged,  he  treats  the  entire  war  as  though  it 
were  being  fought  for  her.  He  still  talks  of  being 
afraid.  He  refuses  to  lie  about  his  sensations.  The 
more  he  sees  of  shell-fire  the  stronger  grows  his 
physical  dread.  Because  of  this,  he  continually 
sets  traps  for  his  cowardice.  Tonight  he  set  an- 
other trap.  I  suppose  he  got  to  thinking  how  he'd 
hate  to  be  an  infantryman  in  a  raid,  so  he  decided 
to  go  over  the  top  with  them.  At  the  present  mo- 
ment he  might  be  hi  England,  but  cut  his  leave 
short,  returned  from  Blighty  and  was  sent  up  for- 
ward as  liaison-officer.  It  was  only  yesterday  that 
he  surprised  me  by  raising  the  gas-blanket  and 
pushing  in  his  head. 

"You!"  I  exclaimed.  "I  was  picturing  you  in 
Piccadilly.  What's  brought  you  back  from  Blighty 
six  davs  ahead  of  time?" 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET          15 

He  flushed,  but  his  eyes  mocked  his  confusion. 
"It  was  devilishly  lonely  in  London",  he  said  slowly; 
"there  were  too  many  girls."  And  then,  with  an 
embarrassed  smile,  "I  wanted  to  go  straight  because 
of  her." 

So  because  he  wanted  to  go  straight  for  her,  he's 
out  in  No  Man's  Land  tonight,  re-testing  his  worth 
and  taking  his  life  in  his  hands.  There's  a  woman 
at  the  back  of  each  one  of  us  who  inspires  most  of 
our  daring.  With  some  of  us  she's  the  woman  whom 
we  hope  to  meet,  with  others  the  woman  whom 
we've  met.  Whether  she  lives  in  the  future  or  the 
present,  we  carry  on  in  an  effort  to  be  worthy  of 
her.  And  when  it's  ended,  will  she  be  worthy?  Will 
she  guess  that  we  did  it  all  for  her?  We  shall  never 
tell  her;  if  she  loves  us,  she  will  guess. 

A  sunken  road,  rotten  with  rain  and  mud,  runs 
twenty  yards  to  my  left.  I  shall  know  when  the 
raiders  return,  for  I  shall  hear  the  weary  tread  of 
the  wounded  and  the  prisoners  as  they  pass  this 
point.  A  little  higher  up  the  road  I  can  already 
hear  the  muffled  panting  of  an  ambulance,  waiting 
to  carry  back  the  dead.  Should  I  miss  them,  the 
quickened  beat  of  the  engine  will  warn  me.  The 
enemy  knows  that  this  is  the  route  by  which  they 
must  return;  he's  lobbing  over  gas-shells  and  search- 
ing with  whizz-bangs.- A  messy  way  of  spending  life! 
Did  God  know  that  it  was  for  this  that  He  was 
creating  us  when  He  launched  us  on  our  adventure 
through  the  world? 


n 

IT'S  morning.  We're  always  safe  when  the  light 
has  come.  The  most  dangerous  hour  in  the 
twenty-four  is  the  one  when  day  is  dawning. 
Throughout  that  hour  the  infantry  always  "stand 
to"  with  rifles,  bombs  and  Lewis  guns,  on  the  alert 
for  an  attack.  S.  O.  S.  rockets  are  kept  handy,  so  thai 
help  can  be  summoned.  At  every  observation-post 
an  especially  keen  look-out  is  kept;  at  the  batteries 
the  sentries  stand  with  eyes  fixed  on  the  eastern 
horizon  to  catch  the  first  signal  of  distress. 

The  anxious  hour  is  over  and  morning  has  come. 
For  another  day  men  breathe  more  freely;  till  night 
returns,  death  has  been  averted.  The  narrow  slit, 
just  above  the  level  of  the  ground,  through  which  I 
spy  on  the  enemy,  reveals  a  green  and  dewy  coun- 
try. The  little  flowers  of  the  field  are  still  asleep, 
their  faces  covered  b)'  their  tiny  petal-hands.  I 
want  to  shout  to  them  to  wake  up  and  be  compan- 
ionable. After  watching  many  dawns  I  have  dis- 
covered that  poppies  are  the  early  risers  among  the 
flowers  and  that  dandelions  are  the  sleepy  heads. 

The  ridge  falls  away  from  where  I  am.  Beneath 
the  slope,  directly  in  front,  there  is  a  village  de- 
stroyed by  shell-fire.  To  the  right  there  is  another 
village  equally  desolate.  Still  further  in  front  there 
are  two  more  villages  which  have  been  trampled  into 

16 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET  17 

dust  by  attacks  and  counter-attacks.  Every  tree 
is  dead.  Every  wood  has  been  uprooted.  Every 
Calvary,  with  its  suffering  Christ,  has  been  knocked 
down.  When  the  morning  clears  I  shall  be  able  to 
see  for  miles  across  all  the  intricate  trench  system 
of  the  Huns,  defence  line  behind  defence  line,  to 
the  barricade  of  cities  on  the  eastward  edge  of  the 
plain.  In  those  cities  life  seems  to  follow  its  normal 
round.  The  clock  in  the  town-hall  of  Douai  is  so 
accurate  that  we  can  set  our  watches  by  it.  Plumes 
of  smoke  puff  lazily  from  chimneys  and  drift  across 
the  red  roofs  of  houses.  Through  a  telescope  one 
can  pick  up  lorries  speeding  along  roads  and  trains 
steaming  in  and  out  of  cuttings.  Throughout  the 
day  we  search  hollows  and  woods  for  the  flash  of 
guns,  taking  bearings  to  them  when  they  have  been 
found.  Early  morning  is  the  time  to  spot  infantry 
movement.  The  men  approach  out  of  the  distance 
in  twos  and  threes.  They  may  be  carrying-parties 
or  they  may  be  runners.  By  careful  watching  you 
get  to  know  their  routes  and  even  the  places  to 
which  they  are  going.  You  telephone  back  the 
target  to  the  guns  and  keep  them  "standing  to" 
until  your  victims  have  reached  a  favorable  point, 
then  you  send  back  the  order  for  one  gun  to  fire. 
You  observe  where  the  shell  lands,  send  back  a 
rapid  correction  and,  when  you've  got  the  correct 
line  and  range,  bring  all  your  guns  to  bear  upon 
the  target,  adjusting  the  range  and  line  of  your 
shots  as  they  run.  In  the  dull  round  of  an  observ- 
ing officer's  life  these  little  spells  of  man-hunting 


i8          THE   TEST   OF    SCARLET 

are  the  chief  excitement.  There  is  another,  how- 
ever—  when  the  enemy  has  spotted  you  and  sets 
to  work  to  knock  you  out.  Neither  of  these  diver- 
sions is  likely  to  happen  for  some  time  yet;  it's  too 
early.  Long  scarves  of  mist  are  swaying  low  along 
the  ground.  The  more  distant  landscape  is  a  sea 
of  vaporous  billows,  above  which  only  the  black- 
ened fangs  of  trees  show  up. 

One  day  the  greatest  excitement  of  all  may  hap- 
pen: camouflaged  in  a  pit  to  my  right  we  have  an 
anti-tank  gun;  in  the  dug-out  below  me  I  have  a 
specially  selected  detachment  of  gunners.  Should 
the  Hun  make  up  his  mind  to  break  through,  he 
would  certainly  employ  tanks  —  perhaps  some  of 
our  own,  which  he  captured  further  south.  Any  one 
of  these  fine  mornings  when  night  is  melting  into 
dawn,  our  great  chance  may  come.  Then  our  gal- 
lant little  thirteen-pounder,  which  has  held  its 
tongue  ever  since  we  dropped  it  in  the  trench,  will 
start  talking  and  we  shall  have  a  merry  time,  taking 
pot-shots  over  open  sights,  till  the  enemy  is  beaten 
back  or  we  are  all  dead. 

How  many  days,  weeks,  months  have  I  sat  here 
gazing  on  this  same  stretch  of  country?  I  know  it 
all  by  heart  —  every  blasted  tree,  every  torn  road- 
way, every  ruined  house.  We  have  names  for 
everything  —  Dick  House,  Telephone  House,  Lone 
Tree;  all  the  names  are  set  down  on  our  maps. 
Through  summer,  winter  and  spring,  ever  since  we 
first  stormed  the  ridge,  we  have  watched  the  same 
scene  till  our  eyes  ache  with  the  monotony  —  and 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET          19 

now  again  it  is  summer.  Every  now  and  then  they 
have  withdrawn  us  to  put  on  an  attack  in  a  new 
part  of  the  line,  but  always  they  have  had  to  bring 
us  back.  This  ridge  is  the  Gibraltar  of  the  entire 
Front  from  Ypres  to  Amiens;  if  the  British  were 
thrown  back  from  here  it  would  mean  a  huge  re- 
treat to  the  north  and  south.  The  Hun  knows  that. 
Directly  we  march  out  and  another  corps  takes  over 
from  us,  he  begins  to  make  his  plans  for  an  offen- 
sive. In  the  spring,  when  we  were  away,  he  put  on 
an  attack  and  gained  a  dangerously  large  amount 
of  ground.  As  soon  as  we  re-appeared  he  fell  back. 
He  has  learnt  the  cost  of  provoking  the  Canadians 
—  the  white  Gurkhas  as  he  has  called  us  —  and 
prefers  to  express  his  high  spirits  elsewhere.  So 
here  we  sit  guarding  our  fortress,  with  orders  to 
hold  it  at  any  price.  The  most  we  can  do  is  to 
annoy  the  Hun  when  we're  itching  to  crush  him. 

Each  day  we  hope  that  our  turn  has  come.  The 
line  is  being  pressed  back  to  the  south  of  us.  Amiens 
and  Rheims  are  threatened.  Big  Bertha  is  shelling 
Paris.  Our  nurses  near  the  coast  are  being  mur- 
dered by  airmen.  We  hear  of  whole  divisions  being 
wiped  out  —  of  both  the  attacking  and  the  at- 
tacked being  so  spent  with  fighting  that  they  cannot 
raise  their  rifles,  and  crawl  towards  each  other  only 
to  find  that  they  have  no  strength  in  their  hands  to 
strangle.  .  .  .  And  here  we  sit  watching,  always 
watching.  It  is  because  we  are  so  fed  up  that  we 
send  out  raiding  parties.  The  damage  they  do 
doesn't  count  for  much  when  compared  with  the 


20          THE   TEST   OF    SCARLET 

total  damage  that  the  enemy  is  doing  to  us;  but  it's 
consoling.  It's  our  way  of  saying,  "You  think 
you're  top-dog;  but  the  Canadians  are  here  with 
their  tails  up.  You  haven't  finished  with  the  British 
yet  —  not  by  a  damned  sight." 

The  enemy  settled  his  account  with  some  of  our 
boys  last  night.  It  appears  that  our  party  got 
safely  to  their  rendezvous  in  No  Man's  Land, 
where  they  had  to  lie  in  hiding  in  shell-holes  till 
the  artillery  started.  Everything  was  going  well 
and  it  was  only  a  few  seconds  to  zero  hour  when  a 
returning  enemy  patrol  stumbled  across  them.  Our 
chaps  didn't  dare  to  shoot  lest  they  should  warn  the 
garrison  in  the  Hun  front-line.  They  had  to  use 
their  bayonets,  trip  them  up  and  choke  them  into 
silence.  While  this  was  in  the  doing  our  barrage 
came  down  and  then,  since  noise  no  longer  mat- 
tered, they  made  short  work  of  the  patrol.  In  this 
preliminary  scrap  Silborrad,  the  scout-officer,  was 
killed.  He  was  hugely  popular  with  his  men,  for 
he  had  a  reputation  of  always  recovering  his 
wounded.  His  death  made  them  see  red.  When 
our  barrage  lifted  and  they  stormed  the  Hun  trench, 
they  killed  every  thing  in  sight;  it  was  only  when 
nothing  living  was  left  that  they  remembered  that 
they  had  taken  no  prisoners.  The  proper  thing 
to  have  done  would  have  been  to  have  come  back. 
Their  orders  were  not  to  remain  in  enemy  territory 
longer  than  fifteen  minutes;  there's  always  the  dan- 
ger that  the  enemy  supports  may  move  up  for  a 
counter-attack  and  his  artillery  is  almost  certain  to 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET          21 

place  a  wall  of  fire  in  No  Man's  Land  to  prevent  the 
raiders  from  getting  back.  It  was  Battling  Brown 
who  decided  the  question.  "We'll  take  a  chance  at 
their  second-line",  he  said.  "If  we  don't  find  any- 
one there,  we'll  poke  about  in  their  communication- 
trenches  till  we  do  find  someone." 

They  found  the  second-line  strongly  held  by  ma- 
chine-gunners. There  was  bloody  work,  but  they 
secured  their  prisoners.  The  problem  now  was  how 
to  get  back  with  their  dead  and  wounded.  The 
green  lights  which  the  men  in  our  front-line  were 
shooting  up  to  guide  them,  showed  very  faintly  and 
were  often  lost  to  sight  on  account  of  the  rolling 
nature  of  the  country.  The  return  journey  was 
made  still  more  difficult  by  snipers  who  picked  them 
off  as  they  retired.  They  had  already  entered  our 
wire,  when  word  was  passed  along  that  one  of  our 
men  was  missing.  Dick  must  have  heard  it;  when 
they  were  safe  in  our  trench  and  called  the  roll,  it 
was  discovered  that  he  too  was  absent.  This  much 
I  learnt  in  the  early  hours  from  the  wounded  who 
limped  up  the  sunken  road  to  my  left.  It  wasn't 
until  dawn  that  I  heard  the  rest  of  the  story:  that 
was  when  they  were  bringing  out  the  dead.  The 
engine  of  the  ambulance  had  quickened  its  beat, 
getting  ready  to  climb  the  hill.  I  ran  out  and 
found  them  lifting  something  wrapped  in  a  blanket. 

"  'E  was  some  man",  one  of  the  bearers  was  say- 
ing; "but  'e's  too  'eavy.  They  'adn't  ought  to  'ave 
brought  'im  out."  Then  I  caught  sight  of  Dick's 
gray  hair.  Beneath  his  half-shut  lids  his  eyes  still 


22          THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

seemed  to  twinkle,  mocking  at  anything  good  that 
might  be  said  about  him. 

They  told  how,  when  within  reach  of  safety,  he 
had  gone  back  to  find  the  missing  man.  He  had 
been  gone  two  hours,  when  something  was  seen 
moving  behind  our  wire.  Just  as  they  challenged, 
they  recognized  him  by  his  great  height.  He  was 
half-carrying,  half-dragging  the  missing  chap  who 
had  lost  his  way  through  being  blinded  in  the  en- 
counter with  the  patrol.  They  went  out  to  help 
him  in  with  his  burden.  When  they  got  to  him,  he 
said,  "Boys,  I'm  done."  After  he'd  spoken  he  just 
crumpled  up.  Blood  was  trickling  from  his  mouth 
and,  when  they  unbuttoned  his  tunic,  it  was  sticky. 
Before  they  could  bind  him,  he  pegged  out. 

As  I  gazed  down  at  him  in  the  early  morning 
twilight  I  could  guess  exactly  what  had  happened  — 
just  as  surely  as  if  his  lips  had  moved  to  tell  me: 
he  had  been  frightened  to  go  back,  so  he  went. 

He  had  wanted  to  go  straight  for  her.  Because 
he'd  feared  that  his  loneliness  might  trap  him  into 
beastliness,  he'd  come  back  six  days  ahead  of  time 
to  meet  his  death.  I  wonder  how  much  she'll  care. 
Out  here  one  continually  wonders  that  about  the 
women  men  spend  their  hearts  on,  idealizing  them 
into  an  impossible  perfection.  Would  she  have 
turned  her  pretty  back  on  him  if  he  had  lived  to 
meet  her?  No  matter,  Dick;  to  have  gone  straight, 
even  for  the  sake  of  a  delusion,  was  worth  while. 


Ill 

THIS  is  the  kind  of  morning  that  reminds  one 
of  England;  the  larks  are  singing  above  the 
melting  mists  and  there's  a  sense  of  peace  in  the  air. 
One  by  one  the  signallers  tumble  up  the  dug-out 
stairs;  they  stand  in  the  trench  yawning,  stretching 
themselves  and  breathing  in  the  golden  coolness. 
Very  lazily  they  set  to  work  preparing  breakfast. 
They  have  to  be  careful  lest  any  smoke  escapes  and 
gives  away  our  post  to  the  enemy.  If  once  the  Hun 
suspected  we  were  here,  it  wouldn't  take  him  long 
to  knock  us  out.  They'll  be  bringing  me  in  some 
stewed  tea  presently;  I  can  hear  the  bacon  sizzling. 
I  wish  there  was  some  water  to  wash  with;  but  we 
gave  most  of  ours  to  the  wounded  last  night. 

I  was  in  England  this  spring  when  the  big  Hun 
drive  against  Paris  started.  I'd  just  recovered  from 
being  wounded  and  directly  I  heard  the  news,  com- 
menced moving  heaven  and  earth  to  get  back. 
Heaven  and  earth  didn't  require  much  moving  — 
men  were  too  badly  needed.  I  reported  back  to  my 
reserve  depot  on  a  Wednesday  and  within  the  hour 
was  told  that  I  could  proceed  on  the  next  draft 
leaving  for  France.  I  was  given  a  two  days'  leave 
to  collect  my  kit,  and  permission  to  join  the  draft 
at  the  London  station. 

That  London  leave  is  curiously  blurred  in  my 
23 


24          THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

memory.  It  was  only  my  body  that  was  in  England; 
my  soul  was  in  France.  I  rushed  from  tailors  to 
bankers,  from  bankers  to  bootmakers,  from  boot- 
makers to  lunches  and  theatres;  I  met  people  and 
laughed  with  people  and  said  "Good-bye"  to  people, 
but  there  was  nothing  real  in  anything  that  I  saw 
or  did.  In  imagination  I  saw  myself  on  the  Amiens 
road  fighting.  "Our  backs  are  to  the  wall",  Sir 
Douglas  Haig  had  told  us.  "The  Canadians  will 
advance  or  fall  with  their  faces  to  the  foe"  —  that 
was  how  my  Corps  Commander's  special  order  had 
run.  Every  moment  that  I  was  not  there  with  the 
chaps  seemed  shameful.  If  we  were  beaten  back 
it  seemed  that  it  would  be  my  fault  —  one  more  man 
in  the  line  might  make  all  the  difference. 

How  little  I  was  noticing  the  world  about  me  was 
emphasized  by  one  small  incident.  I  had  been  taxi- 
riding  all  over  the  map  in  a  frenzied  effort  to  collect 
my  gear.  In  these  war-days  London  taxi-drivers 
have  developed  short  tempers,  especially  for  fares 
who  keep  them  waiting.  My  man  had  been  extraor- 
dinarily docile.  At  the  end  of  two  hours,  when  I 
had  deposited  some  of  my  baggage  at  Victoria,  I 
said  to  him,  "I  suppose  I'd  better  pay  you  off  now. 
I've  got  to  go  to  Battersea;  you  won't  want  to  go 
there,  so  I'll  have  to  go  by  train." 

"My  time's  yours",  said  the  man.  "We  can't 
get  any  jobs  since  this  offensive  started ;  all  the  offi- 
cers have  left  for  France." 

It  was  true,  and  I  hadn't  noticed  it.  The  restau- 
rants were  empty,  except  for  a  few  civilians.  You 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET  25 

could  get  seats  for  any  theatre  and  as  many  as  you 
wanted.  Almost  over  night  the  soldier-men  had 
departed. 

I  remember  with  peculiar  vividness  the  attitude 
of  my  friends  towards  me.  They  treated  me  as  a 
person  who  tomorrow  would  be  dead  —  the  way  we 
treated  men  in  khaki  in  1914,  before  we  had  learnt 
that  not  every  man  who  goes  into  battle  stays  there 
a  corpse.  My  two  brothers  got  leave  from  the 
Navy  and  came  to  see  me  off.  I  left  them  to  do  the 
booking  of  rooms  at  the  hotel:  when  we  went  up  to 
bed  the  night  before  I  started,  I  found  that  instead 
of  booking  three  rooms,  they  had  booked  one  room 
with  two  beds.  I  didn't  comment  on  it. 

It  was  dark  when  we  rose.  While  we  dressed,  we 
talked  emptily  with  a  feverish  jocularity.  In  the 
midst  of  a  hurried  breakfast  four  friends  appeared, 
who  had  given  me  no  previous  warning  of  their  in- 
tentions. They  were  people  who  liked  their  com- 
fort; they  must  have  travelled  by  workmen's  trains 
to  get  there.  Chatting  with  a  spurious  gaiety,  we 
walked  over  to  the  station  through  the  damp  raw 
half-light.  I  wasn't  allowed  to  carry  anything.  As 
though  their  minds  were  clocks  ticking,  I  could 
hear  them  repeating  over  and  over,  "The  Canadians 
will  advance,  or  fall  with  their  faces  to  the  foe.  Our 
backs  are  to  the  wall  —  He'll  fall",  they  kept  repeat- 
ing; "he'll  fall." 

The  platform  was  dense  with  khaki.  Here  and 
there  one  saw  a  frail  old  lady  seeing  her  son  off; 
there  was  a  sprinkling  of  girls,  who  clung  to  their 


26  THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

men's  arms  and  made  a  brave  attempt  to  laugh. 
Then,  before  anything  sincere  had  been  done  or 
said,  everyone  was  taking  his  seat  and  the  doors 
were  being  locked.  There  was  no  khaki  on  the 
platform  now  —  only  the  drab  of  civilian  costume, 
which  made  its  wearers  look  like  mourners.  I  leant 
out  of  the  window.  Suddenly  one  of  my  women 
friends,  who  had  never  done  such  a  thing  before, 
drew  herself  up  by  my  hand  and  kissed  me.  The 
wheels  began  to  revolve.  "When  you  get  there,  keep 
your  heads  down",  the  men  on  the  platform  called. 
"  Cheerio,  old  things,"  we  answered.  The  girls  tried 
to  say  something,  put  their  hands  to  their  throats 
and  choked.  Their  smiles  became  masks.  Then  we 
were  out  of  the  station,  speeding  past  housetops, 
with  the  wheels  singing  triumphantly,  "The  Cana- 
dians will  advance  —  advance  —  advance." 

We  were  all  Canadians  in  my  carriage.  We  had 
all  been  wounded  —  some  once,  some  of tener.  "Well, 
we  can't  get  there  too  soon",  one  said.  To  parade 
our  assumed  indifference,  we  began  to  play  cards. 
Farther  down  the  train,  above  the  roar  of  our  going, 
we  could  hear  the  cheery  voices  of  the  "other  ranks" 
singing, 

"Good-bye-ee 
Don't  cry-ee 
Wipe  the  tear,  baby  dear,  from  your  eye-ee." 

We  were  trying  to  bluff  it  out  to  all  the  sleeping 

country  that  we  didn't  care  and  rather  liked  dying. 

The  base-port  across  the  Channel  at  which  we 


THE    TEST    OF   SCARLET          27 

landed  was  in  strange  contrast  to  London's  haggard 
smiling.  It  not  only  did  not  care,  but  it  totally 
ignored  the  fact  that  "our  backs  were  to  the  wall." 
Nothing  had  changed  since  we  had  seen  it  last. 
People  were  no  cheerier,  no  duller.  They  had  the 
same  bored  air  of  carrying  on  with  what  they  ob- 
viously regarded  as  "a  hell  of  a  job".  The  dug-out 
Colonels  and  Majors,  who  handed  us  our  transpor- 
tation, were  just  as  fussily  convinced  as  ever  that 
they  alone  were  conducting  the  war.  On  the  journey 
up  the  line  the  only  signs  of  menace  were  trench- 
systems  hastily  thrown  up  far  back  of  where  any 
had  been  before,  a  rather  unusual  amount  of  new 
ordnance  on  trucks  and  the  greater  frequence  of 
hospital  trains,  hurrying  towards  the  Channel.  The 
idea  that  we  were  soon  to  be  corpses  began  to  fade; 
we  played  cards  more  assiduously  that  we  might 
keep  normal.  Now  and  then,  as  we  passed  towns, 
we  looked  out  of  the  window.  We  began  to  recog- 
nise the  names  of  stations  and  to  guess  at  the  part 
of  the  Front  to  which  we  were  going.  We  ceased 
guessing;  we  knew  at  last. 

"So  he's  attacking  the  Vimy  Ridge",  we  thought. 

It  was  a  year  since  our  Corps  had  captured  it:  if 
the  capturing  of  it  had  been  a  bloody  affair,  the 
defending  of  it  against  overwhelming  odds  would  be 
twice  as  bloody.  In  imagination  I  could  smell  the 
horror  of  the  unburied  dead  of  Farbus  and  see  the 
galloping  of  the  shells,  like  the  hoofs  of  invisible 
cavalry,  up  the  road  from  Willerval.  The  fallen 
victors  of  last  year's  fight  would  be  stirring  in  their 


28  THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

shallow  graves  and  pushing  their  bones  above  the 
ground  in  protest. 

All  this  I  saw  as  I  journeyed  and  played  cards. 
.  .  .  And  when  I  got  here  I  found  that  it  was  to 
this  I  was  returning  —  to  this  intolerable  inertia  of 
watching.  "The  Canadians  will  advance  or  fall  with 
their  faces  to  the  foe".  Brave  words!  But  we  have 
neither  advanced,  nor  fallen.  In  utter  weariness, 
but  with  purpose  unbroken,  other  men  are  crawling 
into  battle  on  their  hands  and  knees  before  Amiens, 
while  we  sit  still,  with  the  indignity  of  not  dying 
upon  us. 


IV 

THE  Major  has  just  phoned  me  to  say  that 
there's  an  officer  coming  forward  to  relieve 
me,  and  that  he  won't  be  one  of  us.  That  sets  me 
wondering;  does  it  mean  that  we're  going  to  be 
pulled  out  to  take  part  in  the  fight?  There  have 
been  all  kinds  of  rumours  going  the  rounds  this 
summer  —  rumours  to  the  effect  that  when  Foch 
has  let  the  Hun  advance  far  enough  our  Corps  is  to 
be  made  the  hammer-head  of  the  offensive  which  is 
to  push  him  back.  There  would  seem  to  be  some 
truth  in  the  report,  for  every  time  we've  been  with- 
drawn from  the  line  it's  been  to  practise  open  war- 
fare. We've  rehearsed  with  tanks  and  aeroplanes, 
and  fought  sham  battles  in  which  nearly  all  our 
work  has  consisted  in  coming  into  action  at  the 
gallop.  We've  been  nicknamed  "Foch's  Pets", 
which  may  not  mean  very  much;  but  it  at  least 
seems  certain  that  when  the  Allies'  drive  starts  we 
shall  be  in  it.  The  thought  is  intoxicating:  it  means 
the  end  of  waiting. 

But  what  will  become  of  Bully  Beef  and  his 
mother  if  we  sail  off  into  the  blue  on  a  great  at- 
tack? Bully  Beef  and  his  mother  need  explaining; 
they  have  no  official  standing  —  they  are  members 
of  our  battery  whom  the  Army  does  not  recognize. 
Bully  Beef  is  a  little  boy  in  skirts,  about  four  years 

29 


30          THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

old  I  should  hazard.  His  mother  is  a  French  girl 
of  not  more  than  twenty;  she  is  not  married.  Bully 
Beef  introduced  himself  to  the  battery  about  two 
months  ago  when  we  were  out  at  training.  He  used 
to  hide  himself  in  the  hedge  of  a  deeply  wooded  lane 
which  climbed  the  hill  to  the  sergeants'  mess;  from 
this  point  of  vantage  he  used  to  throw  sticks  and 
stones  at  anyone  in  khaki.  He  had  long  hair  down 
to  the  middle  of  his  small  fat  back;  this,  taken  in 
conjunction  with  his  skirts,  left  all  the  battery 
fully  persuaded  for  a  week  that  he  was  a  girl.  On 
account  of  his  supposed  sex  he  was  not  chastised  for 
his  stone-throwing.  We  called  him  "Little  Sister". 
Our  wagon-lines  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill  in  a 
meadow  the  length  of  which  a  tiny  river  ran.  Along 
the  sides  of  the  river  bushes  grew  in  tangled  pro- 
fusion. It  was  here  that  we  held  our  watering 
parades,  leading  our  horses  close  to  the  edge  of  the 
bank  so  that  they  could  dip  their  noses  in  the 
ripples.  In  the  woods  near  by  our  men  had  their 
bivouacs,  creating  the  appearance  of  a  gipsy-camp. 
At  the  top  of  the  meadow  our  guns  and  wagons  were 
parked;  behind  them  in  three  straight  lines  our 
horses  had  their  standings.  In  the  bowl  of  the  val- 
ley, as  far  as  eye  could  stretch,  the  wheat  grew  yel- 
low. Round  the  lip  of  the  bowl,  where  the  hills 
touched  the  sky,  the  coolness  of  woods  drew  a  thick 
green  line.  It  was  a  very  quiet  spot,  mellow  with 
nightingales,  and  lazy  with  summer.  It  gave  no 
hint  of  battle,  except  at  night  when  the  bombing 
planes  came  over  to  destroy  us  and  the  chalky 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET          31 

fingers  of  searchlights  unravelled  the  clouds  and 
suddenly  pointed.  When  they  pointed,  every  Archie 
for  miles  round  would  open  up  at  an  intense  rate  of 
fire. 

I  say  it  gave  no  hint  of  battle.  That  is  not  quite 
precise.  What  I  mean  is  that  the  country  itself 
gave  no  hint  of  unrest  in  its  own  appearance.  Among 
the  people  the  signs  were  plentiful.  There  were 
ourselves  for  instance.  Every  village  was  packed 
with  storm-troops,  being  fattened  up  like  turkeys 
for  killing.  There  were  Chinamen  building  new 
railways  through  the  grain  in  preparation  for  the 
retreat  which  seemed  inevitable.  All  kinds  of  new 
trench-systems  were  being  dug,  that  we  might  dis- 
pute every  inch  of  territory.  Down  the  gleaming 
roads  little  processions  of  refugees  were  continually 
passing,  led  by  an  old  horse,  tied  together  with  rope 
and  string,  and  harnessed  into  a  creaking  dilapi- 
dated wagon.  The  wagon  was  invariably  over- 
loaded with  things  which  looked  absolutely  worth- 
less. On  the  shafts  of  the  wagon  a  disconsolate 
man  would  sit,  staring  vacantly  at  everything  and 
nothing.  Following  behind  on-  foot  would  come  a 
dog,  some  dirty  children  and  a  draggle-tailed  wo- 
man. The  woman  seemed  to  be  the  least  important 
part  of  the  man's  possessions.  Only  the  mouldy 
skeleton  between  the  shafts  seemed  to  hold  any 
place  in  his  affections;  it  helped  him  to  escape. 
Every  day  such  processions  crawled  through  the 
sunshine.  Our  men  laughed  and  shared  their  ra- 
tions with  the  children.  Ah,  how  merry  we  were 


32          THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

and  how  much  we  laughed  while  we  waited  for 
death  to  call  us!  The  refugees  were  fleeing  towards 
life  —  a  life  which  they  dreaded.  We  had  nothing 
to  fear  from  living  —  life  had  done  its  worst. 

Not  for  an  hour  in  the  day  or  night  did  the  guns 
cease  their  distant  chiding,  lowing  like  cattle  and 
bidding  us  return.  That  we  would  return  dramati- 
cally and  without  warning  we  were  well  aware.  We 
were  only  ignorant  of  the  place  and  time.  We  had 
cut  down  our  kits  to  what  was  absolutely  neces- 
sary; everything  superfluous  had  been  returned  to 
Blighty.  Our  brigade  held  itself  in  readiness  to 
march  at  a  two  hours'  notice.  Most  significant  of 
all,  every  day  both  officers  and  men  spent  hours  at 
the  ranges,  learning  to  be  marksmen.  This  in  itself 
was  prophetic  of  close  and  desperate  fighting  —  it 
meant  that  the  enemy  was  expected  to  be  up  against 
the  muzzles  of  our  guns.  Who  ever  dreamt  until 
now  of  training  artillery  to  be  riflemen! 

These  were  the  conditions  under  which  we  made 
Bully  Beef's  acquaintance.  The  sergeants'  mess 
was  in  the  cottage  where  his  mother  lived;  he  soon 
made  friends  with  the  Sergeant-Major.  It  wasn't 
long  before  he  began  to  appear  upon  parades,  his 
grubby  hand  held  fast  in  the  big  brown  fist  of  one 
of  the  drivers  or  gunners.  It  was  bad  for  good 
order  and  discipline,  but  none  of  us  officers  had  the 
heart  to  forbid  him.  He  soon  learnt  to  obey  the  or- 
ders "Shun"  and  "Stand  at  ease",  and  would  hold 
himself  steady  with  "eyes  front"  to  be  inspected.  It 
was  about  a  fortnight  after  we  had  been  billetted  in 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET          33 

the  village  that  we  discovered  that  we  could  no 
longer  call  him  "Little  Sister":  he  fell  into  the  river 
when  the  horses  were  watering  and  had  to  go  naked 
while  his  clothes  were  drying. 

His  parentage  was  a  problem.  Some  said  that  he 
was  the  child  of  a  rich  married  Frenchman;  others 
that  his  father  had  been  a  quartermaster  in  a  High- 
land battalion.  We  rather  clung  to  the  legend  of 
his  Scotch  origin;  his  sturdy  habit  of  throwing 
stones  at  people  bigger  than  himself  seemed  to 
prove  that  he  was  British. 

His  mother  is  difficult  to  describe.  She's  a  pleas- 
ant, sun-browned  girl,  with  a  happy  smile  and 
kindly  ways  of  showing  her  contentment.  She 
rarely  looks  at  you;  her  eyes,  which  are  gray,  are 
always  demurely  cast  down,  and  yet  you  feel  that 
all  the  time  she's  watching.  Her  head  is  always 
bare  so  that  her  hair,  which  would  naturally  be 
brown,  is  bleached  to  the  colour  of  honey.  When- 
ever you  pass  her  she  is  humming  a  little  song,  and 
sometimes  she  laughs  beneath  her  breath.  Her 
hands  are  interminably  busy,  doing  something  for 
Bully  Beef  or  some  of  our  men.  She  devours  her 
little  son  with  a  hungry  passion  and  pushes  him 
away  from  her  in  pretence  that  she  does  not  care. 
Everything  that  she  does  she  clothes  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  tenderness.  What  her  name  is  none  of  us 
know  for  certain,  but  we  call  her  Suzette. 

When  we  received  the  order  to  march  out  from 
her  village,  we  thought  that  we  were  going  into  an 
attack,  instead  of  which  at  the  end  of  the  long  night 


34          THE   TEST   OF    SCARLET 

march  we  found  ourselves  again  on  the  Ridge.  Be- 
cause it  was  night  when  we  moved,  nobody  noticed 
that  Suzette  was  following.  I  don't  believe  she 
walked;  I  suspect  that  she  rode  in  a  G.  S.  wagon 
with  the  connivance  of  the  Captain  and  the  Quarter- 
master-Sergeant. When  we  found  her  at  our  new 
wagon-lines  in  the  morning,  no  one  felt  like  report- 
ing officially  on  her  presence. 

Since  then  she  has  made  herself  the  mother  of  our 
battery;  it's  to  Suzette  that  we  all  go  when  we've 
lost  a  button  or  our  clothes  need  patching.  And  it's 
to  Suzette  that  we  go  when  the  letters  from  our  girls 
aren't  up  to  scratch.  We  just  sit  a  little  while  and 
look  at  her;  after  that  we  renew  our  faith  in  women 
and  feel  better. 

The  men  have  built  her  a  little  bivouac  a  short  dis- 
tance away  from  theirs,  yet  within  ear-range  if  she 
should  need  them.  Woe  betide  any  blackguard  who 
tries  to  molest  her.  It's  happened  twice;  the  men 
lay  cold  for  the  best  part  of  an  hour.  They  were 
strangers  from  another  unit. 

How  does  she  exist  on  active  service?  The  cook 
feeds  her  on  the  sly  from  the  battery-kitchen.  The 
men  share  with  her  the  boxes  that  are  sent  to  them 
from  home.  Our  first  thought  on  looking  through  a 
present  of  comforts  is,  "Ah,  that  will  do  for  Su- 
zette". For  the  rest,  the  Quartermaster  supplies 
her  with  necessities  and  blankets.  Of  late  she  has 
taken  to  wearing  a  Tommy's  tunic  and  a  khaki  shirt. 

Suzette  has  become  an  institution;  the  Colonel 
and  General  are  aware  of  her ;  they  both  wink  at  her 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET          35 

presence.  They  may  well,  for  she  keeps  our  men 
straight;  there's  been  no  drunkenness  since  she 
came  among  us.  She'll  be  the  last  woman  to  be 
seen  by  many  of  our  chaps;  the  casualties  in  our 
counter-offensive  are  bound  to  be  heavy. 

What  I'm  wondering  is  will  she  be  allowed  to 
accompany  us  if  we  go  into  open  warfare;  we  can 
scarcely  have  a  woman  with  us  then.  I'd  bet  the 
shirt  off  my  back,  however,  that  the  Captain  will 
manage  it.  He  never  speaks  to  her  or  of  her  — 
never  seems  to  notice  her;  but  if  you  watch  him 
closely,  you  know  that  he  listens  for  her  laughter 
and  her  footstep.  He's  a  man  to  whom  something 
shattering  has  happened  —  something  not  done  by 
shells.  He  was  badly  wounded  last  year  at  Vimy; 
we  none  of  us  expected  to  see  him  back.  He  re- 
joined us  suddenly  in  the  spring.  He's  come  back 
to  die;  we  all  know  that.  By  this  time  next  year, 
if  he  can  contrive  it  bravely,  he  won't  be  listening 
for  Suzette  or  any  girl. 


THE  officer  who's  going  to  relieve  me  has  just 
arrived  and  gone  forward  to  battalion  head- 
quarters with  one  of  my  linesmen.  He's  poking 
round  the  Front  just  at  present;  as  soon  as  he  comes 
back,  he'll  take  over  from  me  and  I  shall  report  to 
my  Major  at  the  guns. 

Queer,  the  places  men  go  to  in  this  war  and  the 
circumstances  under  which  they  meet!  This  chap 
went  to  school  with  me  in  London,  I  discover.  I 
remember  him  chiefly  by  one  of  those  inconsequen- 
tial incidents  of  childhood;  he  had  a  hoydenish 
sister  who  laid  me  out  by  throwing  a  snowball  with 
a  stone  in  it.  She's  a  married  woman  with  children 
now  —  the  wife  of  one  of  the  props  of  the  upper 
middle-classes.  Her  husband  has  a  seat  in  Parlia- 
ment; before  the  war  she  owned  a  Rolls  Royce  and 
everything  else  that  was  respectable.  She's  been 
going  up  in  the  social  scale  ever  since  she  threw  that 
snowball.  It's  by  the  snowball  that  she  recalls  me, 
her  brother  tells  me,  whenever  my  name  is  men- 
tioned. 

This  chap's  been  to  the  east;  he  was  present  at  the 
taking  of  Bagdad.  He  speaks  of  all  that  magic 
country  as  though  it  were  just  as  commonplace  as 
this  desolate  plain  of  ruined  villages  on  which  I 
gaze. 

36 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET          37 

Tonight  we  pull  our  guns  out.  Where  we're  going 
nobody  knows.  Our  infantry  are  already  marching 
out  in  sections  and  the  Imperials  are  taking  over 
from  us.  Staff  officers  with  their  red  tabs  go  up  and 
down  the  trenches.  Brass-hats  pass  down  the 
sunken  road  and  pop  their  heads  in  at  my  observa- 
tion post  to  enquire  their  direction.  There's  mys- 
tery and  excitement  in  the  air.  They  can't  be  with- 
drawing us  for  a  third  time  merely  to  go  into  train- 
ing. It  must  be  for  the  counter-stroke  which  we 
have  so  long  expected.  But  when  are  we  going  to 
strike  and  where? 

I'd  like  to  see  our  Captain  at  this  moment.  The 
whole  impatience  of  our  corps  through  this  summer 
seems  to  be  summed  up  in  his  person.  Like  all  of 
us,  only  more  so,  he  has  listened  since  the  spring 
with  a  kind  of  agony  for  tl^e  galloping  of  the  black 
horseman  who  rides  alone.  He  himself  is  a  man 
who  rides  solitarily.  His  eyes  have  a  steady  for- 
ward gaze,  quiet  and  firm  and  unflinching.  I 
shouldn't  say  he  was  a  good  soldier  —  not  in  de- 
tails or  in  the  ordinary  sense;  he  came  into  the  war, 
as  most  of  us  did,  too  late  in  life  for  that.  In  peace 
times  he  was  a  painter  and  a  dilletante,  noted  for 
many  oddities  which  do  not  matter  now.  He  was 
successful  and  courted  and  on  the  crest  of  the  wave. 
When  war  broke  out,  he  downed  tools  at  once  and 
offered  himself  for  cannon-fodder.  In  August  1914 
a  new  way  of  valuing  men  came  into  fashion.  Death 
is  the  sincerest  of  all  democrats.  It  did  not  mat- 
ter who  we  were,  what  our  attainments,  wealth, 


38          THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

position:  the  chimney-sweep  and  the  genius  were  of 
equal  worth.  Kreisler's  bow-arm  was  only  of  ser- 
vice to  his  country  for  firing  a  rifle.  A  man  might 
have  the  greatest  singing  voice  in  Europe;  his  voice 
would  not  help.  We  required  of  him  his  body;  it 
would  stop  a  bullet.  When  we  reached  the  trenches, 
we  learnt  even  more  dramatically  that  nothing  that 
we  had  been  counted.  Only  the  heart  that  was 
in  us  could  raise  us  above  our  fellows  —  or  to  use 
the  more  colloquial  army  term,  "the  guts".  Guts 
would  enable  a  man  to  fight  on  when  hope  had  re- 
treated, until  hope  in  very  shame  returned.  A  man 
who  hadn't  guts  was  shot  at  the  back  of  the  line  by 
his  comrades  as  a  deserter.  A  man  who  had  was 
shot  up  front  as  a  white  man  with  his  face  towards 
the  enemy.  There  was  no  appeal  from  these  alter- 
natives; birth,  talents,  money  could  not  disturb  the 
sentence.  There  was  only  one  standard  by  which 
our  worth  was  estimated  —  the  measure  of  our  sac- 
rificial courage. 

Of  course  we  were  all  inefficient.  We  had  never 
dreamt  of  being  soldiers  till  the  deluge  of  brutality 
poured  out  of  Germany  and  threatened  to  destroy 
the  world.  We  were  specialists  in  various  small  de- 
partments of  human  knowledge;  our  special  knowl- 
edge, unless  it  was  military,  was  no  longer  of  ser- 
vice. That  was  the  hard  part  of  it  —  that  many  of 
us  who  had  known  the  pride  of  being  specialists, 
were  now  called  upon  to  approve  ourselves  in  an 
effort  for  which  we  were  totally  unfitted.  Of  all 
the  qualities  which  we  had  cultivated  so  carefully 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET          39 

tne  world  asked  for  the  one  to  which  we  had  paid 
least  attention  —  our  courage.  So  the  Captain  laid 
down  his  brush,  turned  his  canvases  to  the  wall, 
joined  as  an  artillery  driver  and  went  to  grooming 
horses.  When  his  training  was  ended  and  he  was 
shot  out  to  the  Front,  he  learnt  almost  over-night 
the  tremendous  lesson  that  it's  the  spirit  that  counts 
—  the  thing  that  a  man  is  essentially  inside  himself 
and  not  the  thing  which  his  social  advantages  make 
him  appear  to  other  people.  A  man  cannot  camou- 
flage under  shell-fire;  in  the  face  of  death  his  true 
worth  becomes  known  to  everybody.  When  war 
started,  Judgment  Day  commenced  in  the  world 
for  every  man  who  put  on  khaki.  God  estimated 
us  in  the  front-line,  and  God's  eyes  were  the  eyes 
of  our  fellows. 

I  believe  the  Captain  had  expected  that  he  would 
prove  himself  a  coward  —  most  of  us  expected  that 
for  ourselves.  When  he  found  that  he  could  be 
fearless,  the  relief  was  so  triumphant  that  he  became 
possessed  by  an  immense  elation.  He  took  the  wild- 
est chances  and  was  always  trying  to  outdo  in 
heroism  his  own  last  bravest  act.  Promotion  came 
rapidly;  at  the  end  of  eight  months  he  was  a  ser- 
geant and  before  the  year  was  out  had  gained  his 
commission.  He  joined  our  brigade  as  an  officer  in 
September  of  1916,  when  we  were  waiting  on  the 
high  ground  behind  Albert,  preparatory  to  being 
flung  into  the  cauldron  of  the  Somme  offensive.  He 
was  treated  with  suspicion  at  first;  no  one  expected 
much  from  a  chap  who  had  been  a  painter.  The 


40          THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

Colonel  sniffed  contemptuously  when  he  reported 
at  the  tent  which  was  brigade  headquarters. 

"What  were  you  before  you  became  a  soldier?" 

"A  painter,  sir." 

"Of  houses?" 

"No.     Of  landscapes  and  portraits." 

To  a  hustler  who  has  flung  railroads  across  con- 
tinents, outwitting  nature  and  abbreviating  time,  to 
have  been  a  painter  seemed  a  sorry  occupation  —  an 
occupation  which  indicated  long  hair,  innumerable 
cigarettes,  artists'  models  and  silken  ways  of  life. 
The  Colonel  himself  had  been  in  the  North-West 
Mounted  Police  and  had  lived  furiously,  tracking 
outlaws  and  rounding  up  Indians. 

"So  you've  been  a  painter,  Heming",  he  sniffed. 
"Out  here  we  don't  do  much  that's  in  your  line.  We 
deal  in  only  two  colours:  the  mud-brown  of  weari- 
ness and  the  scarlet  of  sacrifice.  We  don't  copy 
landscapes  —  we  make  them." 

Heming  was  attached  to  a  battery  whose  Major 
was  noted  for  his  "guts".  He  either  made  or  broke 
his  officers  in  the  first  week  that  they  were  with 
him.  He  didn't  have  to  wait  long  to  be  put  to  the 
test.  The  whole  of  our  brigade  was  crowded  into 
the  narrow  valley,  know  as  Mash  Valley,  which  par- 
allels the  road  which  runs  along  the  ridge  from  Al- 
bert to  Pozieres.  It  was  a  direct  enfilade  for  the 
Hun.  The  batteries  were  strung  throughout  the 
length  of  the  valley  at  about  two-hundred-yard  in- 
tervals, so  that  when  we  weren't  being  pounded  by 
the  enemy,  we  were  being  wounded  by  prematures 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET          41 

from  the  friendly  guns  behind  us.  When  a  strafe 
was  on,  it  was  as  though  two  contending  gales  had 
met  above  our  heads  and  were  pushing  against  each 
other  breast  to  breast.  In  those  days  we  made 
landscapes  at  a  tremendous  rate.  There  met  at  the 
Somme  the  most  ingenious  artists  in  the  science  of 
destruction  which  the  world  had  seen  till  that  date. 
They  found  a  pleasant  country  of  windmills,  snug- 
gling woods,  villages  with  tall,  clear  spires,  nests  of 
embowered  greenness  upheld  by  hills  against  the 
sky,  and  they  trampled  it  with  shells  into  dust  and 
mixed  the  dust  with  the  blood  of  men,  till  as  far  as 
eye  could  stretch  it  was  a  putrescent  sea  of  mud. 

In  the  first  week  of  September  1916,  when  we 
crept  into  our  positions  under  the  heavy  morning 
mist,  the  clay  was  baked  to  the  brittle  hardness  of 
pottery;  two  months  earlier  the  rains  and  carnage 
had  washed  away  all  signs  of  friendliness  and 
greenness.  Hands,  heads  and  stockinged  feet  of  the 
dead  stuck  out  where  the  mud  had  dried  up;  one 
tripped  over  them  and,  at  touching  them,  shrank 
back  with  a  thrill  of  horror.  It  was  a  good  place 
from  many  points  of  view  to  test  a  man's  capacity 
for  "guts".  It  was  especially  good  at  night,  for 
directly  darkness  had  fallen  the  Hun  drenched  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  valley  with  gas-shells 
You  could  hear  them  coming  over  with  a  whistling 
sound,  like  an  army  of  wild  geese.  You  waited  for 
the  explosions  and,  when  you  heard  nothing  but 
stealthy  thuds,  you  knew  that  it  was  time  to  run 
along  the  gun-pits  and  give  the  alarm  for  the  wear- 


42  THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

ing  of  gas-helmets.  The  helmets  with  which  we 
were  issued  in  those  days  were  rather  horrid  affairs. 
They  were  like  gray  flannel  shirts  drenched  in 
treacle  and  sewn  up  at  the  top  so  that  you  could 
not  push  your  head  through.  You  pulled  them  on 
and  tucked  the  shirts  in  under  the  collar  of  your 
tunic.  Then  you  shoved  a  rubber  mouth-piece  be- 
tween your  teeth,  peered  out  through  the  goggles  in 
the  side  of  the  gray  flannel  and  slowly  suffocated. 
Seeing  that  we  were  in  a  valley,  all  the  gas  from 
the  shells  drifted  down  to  the  low  ground  where  the 
gun-pits  had  been  dug  and  hung  there  ready  to  stifle 
your  men  directly  the  suffocation  of  their  helmets 
became  too  much  to  bear.  Mash  Valley  was  most 
excellently  chosen  as  a  place  in  which  to  test  one's 
guts. 

Heming  had  been  with  us  two  days  when  the 
Major  took  him  up  with  him  to  make  a  reconnais- 
sance of  the  front.  At  that  time  I  was  corporal  of 
the  B.  C.  party,  so  I  went  ahead  to  lay  in  wire  in 
order  that  we  might  keep  in  touch  with  the  bat- 
tery should  the  Major  wish  to  register  the  guns.  At 
the  head  of  Mash  Valley  there  was  an  engineers' 
dump,  known  as  Kay,  and  it  was  at  this  point  that 
the  main  trench-system  began.  We  ran  our  wire  in 
as  far  as  Kay  and  were  met  there  by  the  Major  and 
Heming  at  three  in  the  morning. 

A  Scotch  mist  was  drifting  across  the  desolation. 
The  air  was  piercingly  cold  and  a  watery  moon 
looked  down.  I  think  the  first  thing  that  impressed 
one  about  the  trenches  of  the  Somme  was  their 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET          43 

desertion.  The  dead  far  outnumbered  the  living, 
and  the  dead  were  for  the  most  part  unburied.  One 
wondered  from  where  the  men  would  spring  up  to 
fight  should  a  Hun  attack  commence.  The  walls 
of  the  trenches  were  honey-combed  with  little 
scooped  out  holes.  In  those  holes,  with  their  knees 
drawn  up  to  their  chins  and  the  mist  soaking  down 
on  them,  unshaven  haggard  men  slept.  They  were 
polluted  to  the  eyes  and  wearied  to  extinction. 
Sometimes  their  feet  stuck  out  across  the  duck- 
board.  You  stumbled  across  them,  but  they  did 
not  waken;  they  only  moaned.  When  they  did 
not  moan,  you  were  puzzled;  until  a  man  made 
some  motion  or  spoke,  you  were  never  certain 
whether  he  was  living  or  dead.  The  slain  defenders 
and  those  who  had  taken  over  from  them  huddled 
side  by  side,  keeping  guard  together. 

Here  and  there  one  of  the  kennels  had  been 
crushed  in  by  a  shell  and  the  inmate  had  been 
killed  while  he  slept.  His  putteed  legs  and  heavy 
army  boots  were  still  thrust  out  across  the  duck- 
board  ;  they  were  the  only  reminders  of  his  sojourn 
there. 

As  one  drew  nearer  to  the  front-line  through  the 
winding  labyrinth  of  trenches,  he  noticed  that  the 
sides  were  walled  up  with  the  dead.  Men's  bodies 
had  proved  cheaper  than  sandbags;  moreover,  they 
had  saved  labour  in  spots  where  no  unnecessary  men 
ought  to  be  asked  to  jeopardize  their  lives.  The 
bodies,  where  they  showed  through  the  mud,  had 
flaked  off  white  like  plaster  exposed  to  the  wind  and 


44          THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

sun.  Flies  rose  up  in  clouds  as  one  passed;  their 
wings  filled  the  air  with  an  incessant  buzzing. 

Horrors  multiplied  as  the  world  grew  grayer  and 
the  dawn  began  to  break.  We  came  to  a  ditch  lev- 
elled nearly  flat  by  the  Hun  barrage,  in  which  Jocks 
and  coloured  troops  had  fought  side  by  side.  They 
were  buried  to  the  waist;  in  the  process  of  decay  the 
black  men  had  turned  white  and  the  white  black. 

I  watched  the  effect  of  all  this  on  Heming.  The 
Major  watched  him.  Perhaps  most  closely  of  all 
the  signallers  watched  him.  When  a  new  officer 
joins  any  unit,  the  men  are  overwhelmingly  eager 
to  find  out  whether  he  has  guts.  They  know  that 
the  day  is  always  coming  when  their  chance  of  life 
may  depend  on  his  judgment  and  courage. 

Heming's  face  was  the  face  of  a  dreamer.  He 
never  was  nor  could  have  been  a  man  of  action.  He 
imagined  too  far  ahead.  He  visualized  and  fought 
the  horror  which  lurked  behind  each  traverse  be- 
fore he  came  to  it.  A  thousand  times  that  morning 
he  must  have  seen  himself  mutilated  and  dead.  His 
expression  was  tense  and  excited,  but  an  amused 
smile  played  about  the  edges  of  his  mouth.  His 
eyes  beneath  his  steel-helmet  were  brilliant  and  for- 
ward-looking. He  seemed  to  contemplate  his  in- 
ward struggle  against  terror  with  the  unimpassioned 
aloofness  of  a  spectator. 

Trenches  were  becoming  shallower.  It  was  some 
time  since  we  had  passed  any  sentries  or  working- 
parties.  A  horrible,  brooding  silence  was  over 
everything,  broken  only  by  the  secret  dripping  of 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET          45 

rain  and  the  scuttling  of  rats  among  corpses.  The 
Major  became  more  frequent  in  the  examining  of 
his  map.  At  last  he  ordered  us  to  crouch  down 
while  he  stealthily  peered  over  the  lip  of  the  trench 
in  an  effort  to  get  his  bearings.  It  began  to  dawn 
on  us  that  we  had  come  too  far  and  were  lost  in  No 
Man's  Land. 

While  we  waited,  behind  the  mist  we  heard  talk- 
ing. The  mist  parted  and  we  saw,  not  fifty  yards 
away,  the  smoke-gray  uniforms  and  red-cross  arm- 
lets of  a  party  of  Hun  stretcher-bearers.  The  Ma- 
jor was  standing  up.  The  Huns  dropped  the 
stretcher  they  were  carrying;  at  the  same  instant  a 
rifle  rang  out.  The  Major  toppled  backward,  tear- 
ing at  his  breast. 

Then  we  learnt  once  and  for  all  whether  Heming 
had  guts.  His  face  leapt  together — these  are  the 
only  words  in  which  to  describe  his  sudden  change 
of  expression.  The  entire  man  became  knit  in  one 
purpose,  to  out-daunt  the  challenge  of  the  danger. 
His  eyes  were  merry  when  he  turned  to  me.  "There 
are  just  enough  of  you  to  carry  the  Major  out.  He 
may  live  if  you  get  him  to  a  dressing-station.  Work 
your  way  back  down  this  trench;  you'll  strike  our 
front-line  somewhere  in  that  direction." 

"But  what  about  you,  sir?"  I  asked. 

He  was  examining  his  revolver  to  see  whether  it 
was  clean  and  ready.  "I'm  going  forward,"  he  an- 
swered. "If  I  can  get  in  a  few  pot-shots,  I'll  divert 
their  attention  and  help  you  to  make  good  your  get- 
away." 


46          THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

It  was  the  damnedest  bit  of  folly — one  man  with 
a  revolver,  going  forward  to  stir  up  an  unknown 
number  of  the  enemy.  He  was  an  officer,  so  we 
had  to  obey  him;  besides,  there  were  only  just 
enough  of  us  to  carry  out  the  Major.  Just  as  we 
had  started,  Heming  came  crawling  back  to  me  on 
his  hands  and  knees. 

"Corporal,"  he  said  hurriedly,  "if  anything  should 
happen  to  me,  just  drop  a  line  to  this  address  and 
let  her  know  that  I  wasn't  yellow.  I  don't  suppose 
she'll  care,  so  you  don't  need  to  be  sentimental. 
Just  state  the  fact,  and  say  that  I  did  everything 
that  she  might  feel  proud  of  —  of  our  friendship." 

The  address  which  he  slipped  into  my  hand  bore 
the  name  of  a  married  woman.  I  recognized  her 
name,  for  I  had  seen  her  portrait  often  in  the  Lon- 
don Illustrateds.  I  wondered  whether  it  was  true 
what  he  had  said,  that  she  would  not  care. 

There  wasn't  much  time  for  wondering;  the  mist 
was  lifting.  It  was  easy  to  see  one's  direction  now 
and  easy  to  be  seen  by  the  enemy.  The  trench  was 
shallow;  it  was  exhausting  work,  crouching  to  take 
advantage  of  every  bit  of  cover  and  dragging  at  the 
body  of  the  wounded  man.  We  hadn't  been  gone 
ten  minutes  before  a  barrage  came  down  on  the 
spot  where  we  had  been  discovered,  setting  up  a 
wall  of  fire  between  ourselves  and  Heming.  In  the 
brief  silences  between  the  falling  of  the  shells,  I 
could  hear  the  ping  of  rifle-bullets.  They  were  pass- 
ing far  over  to  our  left;  I  could  picture  how  Heming 
was  exposing  himself  to  draw  the  fire  away  from  us. 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET          47 

It  took  us  two  hours  to  get  the  Major  back  to  our 
lines.  The  last  part  of  the  way  we  grew  reckless 
and  carried  him  overland.  Our  infantry  saw  us  and 
came  out  with  a  stretcher  to  help.  At  the  dressing- 
station  the  M.  O  who  attended  to  the  wound  broke 
the  news  abruptly,  "He  hasn't  an  earthly." 

The  Major's  eyes  opened.  He  repeated  the 
words,  "Not  an  earthly."  And  then,  "Tell  Heming 
he's  all  right,  and  say  —  say  I'm  sorry  I  doubted." 

The  Major  went  west  one  hour  after  that  and  we 
returned  to  the  guns  to  report  to  Brigade  what  had 
happened.  The  report  went  in  across  the  wire,  but 
the  Colonel  at  once  sent  for  me  to  give  him  the  de- 
tails in  person.  When  I  had  ended,  he  sat  twisting 
his  moustaches  thoughtfully.  Then,  "That  fool 
painter,"  he  said,  talking  more  to  himself  than 
to  me,  "I  suppose  he  knew  I  thought  he  was  afraid." 
And  then  to  me,  "But  he's  all  white,  Corporal,  and 
it's  up  to  us  to  get  him  out.  D'you  think  you  could 
find  the  way  back?" 

I  told  him  I  could  by  following  the  wire  which  we 
had  laid  to  that  point. 

When  we  again  reached  Kay  Dump  and  Tom's 
Cut,  which  was  the  main  trench  leading  to  the  front- 
line, we  found  that  the  usual  morning  "hate"  was 
in  progress.  The  wounded  of  the  night  before  were 
being  carried  out;  as  the  bearers,  carrying  the 
stretchers  on  their  shoulders,  reached  the  high 
ground,  the  Huns  caught  sight  of  them  and  started 
to  mow  them  down  with  enfilade  fire.  Our  guns 
opened  up  in  retaliation;  by  the  time  the  strafe  had 


48          THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

died  down  the  morning  had  become  too  clear  for 
anyone  to  approach  No  Man's  Land  without  being 
observed.  It  was  in  the  first  dusk  of  evening  that 
Heming  came  back.  We  were  in  the  front-line  wait- 
ing for  him,  when  the  Hun  snipers  opened  up.  We 
saw  him  come  running  in  zig-zags  through  the  rusty 
wire  and  shell-holes.  When  he  jumped  into  the 
trench  beside  us,  he  was  laughing.  "I've  had  a 
simply  ripping  time,  Corporal,"  he  commenced. 
Then,  seeing  the  Colonel,  he  stood  stiffly  to  atten- 
tion and  saluted. 

"What  doing?"  the  Colonel  asked. 

"Making  landscapes",  said  Heming,  with  a 
twinkle,  "and  letting  daylight  into  Huns." 

So  that  was  how  our  Captain  proved  that  he  had 
guts;  he's  done  nothing  but  add  to  the  reputation 
which  he  then  earned.  It  was  on  the  way  down  to 
the  battery  that  he  asked  me  to  give  him  back  the 
address.  "And  you  must  never  mention  her  name, 
Corporal.  Promise  me  that." 

Today  I  am  an  officer  with  Heming  in  the  same 
battery,  and  we  have  never  referred  to  the  matter. 
I  am  sure  he  is  in  love  with  her  and  I  believe  he  was 
in  love  with  her  before  she  married.  Why  he  missed 
her  or  what  are  their  present  relations,  I  cannot 
guess;  all  I  know  is  that  he  is  out  here  to  die  and 
that  she  is  the  inspiration  of  all  his  reckless  courage. 
Now  he  knows  that  the  counter-stroke  is  to  be  struck 
and  that  the  big  chance  of  death  has  come,  his 
heart  will  be  singing.  The  men  as  they  go  about 
their  packing  up  will  be  following  him  with  their 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET          49 

eyes  and  whispering,  "The  Captain's  mighty  cheerio. 
He's  all  for  it."  In  watching  him  they  will  feel  a 
thrill  of  excitement;  they,  too,  will  become  "all  for 
it."  They  will  go  with  him  anywhere  —  if  need  be, 
to  hell. 

Mighty  cheerio  and  all  for  it!  That's  the  way  the 
entire  Canadian  Corps  must  be  feeling  at  this  mo- 
ment. All  through  the  sunny  days  of  spring  and 
summer  we  have  had  to  sit  tight  and  watch  while 
other  men  marched  out  to  meet  their  death.  Thank 
God,  our  turn  to  sacrifice  has  come.  The  indignity 
of  not  dying  is  at  last  removed  from  us. 


VI 

IT  was  growing  dusk  before  the  observing-officer 
of  the  relieving  battery  returned  from  his  recon- 
naissance of  the  Front  to  take  over  from  me.  The 
Hun  planes  had  already  come  out  like  monstrous 
bats  from  their  hiding-places,  and  were  dipping  their 
wings  in  the  aquamarine  and  saffron  of  the  fading 
sky.  Our  machine-gunners  and  riflemen  for  miles 
round  were  busy  taking  pot-shots  at  them,  trying  to 
drive  them  back  so  that  they  should  not  detect  the 
unusual  movement  of  troops  behind  our  lines. 

One  may  say  what  he  likes  about  war,  but  it  has 
moments  which  possess  a  surpassing  and  enthralling 
beauty.  One  such  moment  came  this  evening  as  I 
watched  what  is  likely  to  prove  to  be  my  last  sun- 
set over  the  Vimy  plain.  I  know  it  all  —  every 
charred  tree,  every  hollow,  every  shattered  ruin. 
I  ought  to  know  it  for  it  has  made  me  suffer;  Death, 
mounted  on  his  black  stallion,  has  waited  for  me  be- 
hind almost  every  bit  of  cover  within  sight.  I  have 
felt  him  when  1  could  not  see  him ;  there  have  been 
times  when  across  the  distance  I  have  caught  the 
gleam  of  his  shrouded  eyes.  Because  of  these 
things,  because  of  the  friends  who  have  died  here, 
because  of  the  risks  we  have  taken  and  shared,  be- 
cause of  the  ice-cold  nights,  the  poker-games,  the 

So 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET          51 

brief  escapes  into  cleaner  country,  the  letters  from 
a  certain  girl  and  the  home-sick  dreams  which  have 
wiled  away  tedious  hours  in  dug-outs  —  because  of 
all  these  things,  in  an  obstinate  kind  of  way  I  love 
the  scarred,  forsaken  horror  of  this  country.  "For 
the  last  time",  I  told  myself  as  I  watched  the  sun- 
set glow  grow  fainter  upon  the  enemy  domes  and 
spires  of  Douai. 

If  I  live  through  the  war  I  may  come  back  to 
this  ridge  which  has  been  my  home  for  over  a  year; 
but,  if  I  come  back,  it  will  not  look  the  same.  All 
the  challenge  to  one's  daring  will  have  vanished. 
There  will  be  no  gassing,  no  shelling;  one  will  be 
able  to  expose  himself  as  much  as  he  likes.  Every- 
thing will  be  desperately  and  conventionally  safe. 
Curious  how  one  learns  to  admire  danger! 

While  I  watched  and  the  light  faded,  men  became 
symbols  and  shadows.  They  crept  along  the 
trenches,  going  up  to  die,  as  men  have  gone  up  to 
die  through  the  ages.  Even  in  peace  times  we  were 
soldiers  for  one  cause  or  another,  and  none  of  us 
were  immune  from  dying.  We  are  fighting  from 
the  day  we  draw  breath  till  the  day  when  our 
bodies,  like  beggars'  rags,  drop  from  us  and  our 
spirits  in  their  swift  lean  whiteness  escape.  Death! 
What  is  it  but  just  that,  the  casting  aside  of  tattered 
clothing!  — and  how  tattered  one's  body  can  be- 
come in  the  front-line! 

The  dance  of  destruction  commenced  as  darkness 
settled.  Like  ropes  of  pearls  flung  up,  the  luminous 
tracer-bullets  of  machine-guns  darted  towards  the 


52  THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

sky.  From  somewhere  in  the  clouds  the  Hun 
planes  replied,  flinging  down  similar  ropes  of  ruin. 
Against  the  horizon,  like  lilies  floating,  Hun  flares 
soared  and  swayed.  While  they  lasted,  Gavrelle 
sprang  ghostly  into  sight  and  the  contorted  skeleton 
of  what  once  was  Oppy.  The  flares  sink  and  die, 
everything  is  again  swallowed  up  in  obscurity. 
Down  the  sunken  road  to  my  left  go  the  anonymous 
feet  of  marching  men.  Other  feet  have  trampled 
that  mud,  and  they  now  are  silent.  There  are  feet 
among  those  who  march  tonight  which  will  not  make 
the  return  journey. 

The  phone  rings  sharply.  "You're  wanted,  sir." 
The  message  is  shouted  up  from  the  depths  of  the 
dug-out.  I  press  the  button  of  my  flash-lamp  and 
hurriedly  slither  down  the  innumerable  greasy  stairs. 
As  I  take  the  receiver,  I  tell  the  signaller  to  light 
another  candle  as  there  may  be  a  message  to  pencil. 
He  lights  the  candle  and  sticks  it  against  the  planked 
wall  in  the  orthodox  way,  by  warming  the  wall  with 
the  flame  so  that  the  heat  may  melt  the  wax. 

"Hulloa!  Hulloa!  .  .  .  Oh,  it's  you  sir!"  It's 
my  Major.  "No,  the  friend  who  came  to  see  me 
this  morning  has  not  returned;  he  went  somewhere. 
.  .  .  Yes,  I  know;  he  ought  to  have  taken  over  from 
me  .  .  .  O,  here  he  is.  ...  You'll  have  horses  for 
...  all  my  party.  Yes,  sir,  I  understand.  I  won't 
waste  any  time." 

I  turn  round  to  the  officer  who  is  to  relieve  me. 
"You  took  your  time,  old  thing,  I  must  say.  I 
hope  the  dinner  at  battalion  headquarters  was  a  wet 


THE    TEST   OF   SCARLET          53 

one.  But  you've  rather  crowded  me;  my  battery 
hits  the  trail  tonight." 

He  starts  a  lengthy  explanation,  but  I'm  in  a 
hurry  to  be  gone.  While  I  hand  over  to  him  my 
fighting  maps,  my  linesmen  are  loading  themselves 
with  reels  of  wire  and  instruments. 

"Well,  so  long",  I  say. 

"Good  luck",  he  replies. 

How  often  I  have  spoken  such  words  in  this 
cramped  death-trap;  now  I'm  speaking  them  for  the 
last  time.  I  take  a  final  look  round;  there's  the 
frame-work  bunk,  with  the  chicken-wire  nailed  over 
it,  on  which  I  have  spent  so  many  restless  nights; 
there's  the  ground-sheet  tacked  over  the  second  exit 
through  which  the  draught  was  so  persistent  hi 
coming;  there's  the  pencilled  message  on  the  wall  to 
his  sweetheart  in  the  Argonne  from  the  captured 
French  soldier  who  slaved  for  the  Hun  —  a  message 
of  deathless  love,  which  I  forwarded  to  her  as  di- 
rected. This  place  was  a  home  of  sorts,  and  now  it 
is  another's. 

We  scramble  up  the  steep,  clammy  stairs  into  the 
trench.  The  night  air  is  soft  and  warm;  stars  are 
coming  out.  Round  the  traverse  where  the  thirteen- 
pounder  lies  concealed,  the  gun-detachment  is  wait- 
ing for  me.  I  raise  the  camouflage  to  take  one  last 
look  at  the  brave  little  piece;  then  I'm  tempted  to 
enter  and  to  place  my  hand  upon  the  smooth  cold 
breech-block,  which  shines  like  silver. 

"We  never  got  our  chance  to  fire  you,  old  girl", 
is  my  thought;  "but  we'd  have  done  our  bit,  if  the 


54          THE    TEST   OF   SCARLET 

Hun  tanks  had  come,  you  and  I.  If  the  chance 
does  come,  you'll  have  to  play  the  game  with  some 
other  chap  now." 

We're  in  the  sunken  road,  climbing  the  ridge 
where  the  chalk  gleams  white  as  snow  in  the  dark- 
ness. Some  runners  go  past  us,  smoking  cigarettes. 
They  belong  to  the  relieving  troops;  none  of  our 
men  would  do  that.  A  cigarette  shows  up  like  a 
lamp  from  this  point  of  vantage.  I  halt  the  men 
and  order  them  to  put  out  their  cigarettes. 

We're  on  the  crest  now,  where  a  sentry  chal- 
lenges. To  the  right  and  left  shells  are  falling  with 
a  sullen  crash.  Our  faces  are  turned  towards  the 
west,  where  the  horizon  is  still  faintly  flame-coloured 
and  evening  has  not  yet  sunk  into  night.  To  our 
right  the  splinted  tower  of  Mount  St.  Eloi  points  a 
martyred  finger  at  the  clouds.  Beneath  our  feet 
runs  the  Concrete  Road,  built  at  such  sacrifice 
across  the  torn  battlefield.  All  our  transport  comes 
up  along  this  route,  as  the  Hun  knows  well;  he 
makes  it  the  special  target  of  his  harassing  fire.  We 
note  the  new  hits  which  the  enemy  has  scored  on  it 
since  last  we  made  the  journey.  The  ground  is 
ploughed  with  shells  on  either  side;  here  and 
there  one  finds  black  pools  of  blood,  dead  horses  and 
broken  limbers.  From  craters  and  places  of  con- 
cealment our  forward  guns  belch  fire.  Their  flash 
is  hidden  from  the  enemy  by  the  ridge;  but  he  has 
guessed  their  approximate  locations,  and  searches 
and  sweeps  day  and  night  in  an  effort  to  find  and 
destroy  them.  Now  and  then,  like  the  blast  of  a 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET          55 

furnace,  a  torrent  of  flame  shoots  up  where  he  has 
exploded  an  ammunition  dump.  Against  the  swift 
and  momentary  illumination  one  sees  the  shadowy 
figures  of  men  running  and  dropping  into  shell- 
holes.  The  spectacle  of  death  fails  to  move  us. 
We  have  become  too  used  to  dying. 

As  we  plod  along  under  our  heavy  loads  of  instru- 
ments, kit,  revolvers  and  reels  of  wire,  we  spread 
out  so  that  one  shell  may  not  get  the  lot  of  us.  My 
men  are  singing;  from  the  words  I  gather  an  idea 
of  what  is  happening  in  their  minds: 

I  said  "Good-bye"  to  the  flowers 

And  "Good-bye"  to  the  trees, 

And  the  little  church  which  sleeps  so  quietly, 

I  said  "Good-bye"  to  on  my  knees; 

I  said  "Good-bye"  to  my  sister 

And  my  dear  old  mammy,  too; 

But  my  heart  was  almost  breaking 

When  I  said  "Good-bye"  to  you. 

They're  conscious  of  something  different  and 
devastating  approaching,  and  are  singing  their  fare- 
well to  security. 

Foch's  Pets!  The  hammer-head  of  the  counter- 
attack! If  that's  the  game,  there  won't  be  many 
of  us  left  to  celebrate  peace.  It's  August  now;  how 
many  of  us  will  be  above  ground  by  Christmas? 


VII 

WE  found  our  horses  waiting  for  us  with  the 
grooms  and  horse-holders  in  a  trench  about 
fifty  yards  off  the  road.  They  had  had  to  take  cover 
there  on  account  of  enemy  shelling  attracted  by  an 
anti-aircraft  battery.  The  anti-aircraft  battery 
being  mounted  on  motor-lorries,  had  made  a  swift 
get-away  the  moment  the  retaliation,  which  they 
had  called  down,  had  started.  Our  boys  couldn't 
get  away;  they  had  received  explicit  orders  to  wait 
for  me  and  my  party  with  their  horses  at  one 
specific  point  on  the  Concrete  Road.  Three  horses 
had  been  slightly  wounded  and  one  of  the  men  had 
been  killed.  A  splinter  of  shell  had  cut  his  throat 
as  completely  as  if  a  knife  had  been  drawn  across  it. 

Kneeling  beside  the  body,  I  drew  back  the  sad- 
dle-blanket which  had  been  thrown  over  it  and 
scanned  the  face  with  my  flash-lamp.  My  groom 
touched  me  on  the  shoulder,  "You  won't  recognise 
him,  sir;  he's  a  remount  —  only  came  to  the  Front 
for  the  first  time  yesterday  evening." 

It  was  a  young  face,  with  scarcely  any  beard  on  it. 
Nineteen,  at  most.  The  eyes  were  blue,  and  filmed, 
and  wide.  They  had  a  sudden  expression  of  sur- 
prise and  protest.  Death  doesn't  often  disturb  me 
now-a-days,  but  I  couldn't  bear  that  scarlet  mark 

56 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET  57 

across  the  throat.  —  One  day  at  the  wagon-lines, 
being  chaffed  for  having  come  into  the  army  late  — 
the  next  night  dead!  Poor  laddie!  I  don't  know 
who  you  are  or  where  you  came  from.  If  I  could 
have  prevented  it,  things  shouldn't  have  happened 
this  way.  They  ought  to  have  given  you  a  better 
run  for  your  money.  I'm  sorry. 

The  horses  are  snorting  and  jumping  back  against 
the  reins,  so  I  switch  off  my  flashlight  and  cover  up 
the  face. 

"Have  any  arrangements  been  made?"  1  ask. 

They  tell  me  "None"  —  the  accident  only  hap- 
pened within  the  last  half-hour. 

"Then  one  of  you  will  have  to  mount  it  in  front 
of  you.  Hand  it  over  to  the  Captain  of  the  re- 
lieving battery.  He'll  have  to  see  to  its  burial;  we 
march  within  the  next  three  hours.  .  .  .  Where's 
the  Major?" 

I  learn  that  he's  still  at  the  guns,  so  I  tell  my 
groom  to  lead  on  down  the  road  to  the  battery- 
position  and  I  order  the  rest  of  the  party  to  get 
mounted.  As  I  turn  to  take  a  short-cut  through  the 
rusty  wire  of  old  defenses  and  the  water-logged  cra- 
ters of  unrecorded  fights,  I  glance  back  to  catch 
the  silhouettes  of  the  horsemen  as  they  ride  towards 
the  red  lip  of  the  horizon,  with  the  drooping  body 
hanging  sack-like  in  front  of  the  last  rider's  saddle. 
An  inconspicuous  ending  to  one  lad's  dreams  of 
glory!  He  won't  be  here  for  the  counter-stroke. 
Letters  from  home  will  arrive  full  of  anxiety  and 
affection.  They'll  have  to  be  returned  unread  and 


58          THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

unopened.  The  old,  sad  story!  And  yet,  who 
knows!  Perhaps  he's  lucky. 

Ahead  of  me  in  the  misty  vagueness  of  the  chalk 
lies  a  ray  of  light  like  a  golden  dagger.  I  slide  down 
into  a  trench,  which  was  the  Hun  front-line.  Pop- 
pies and  cornflowers  grow  in  tufts  along  its  sides. 
Beneath  my  feet  I  feel  the  slats  of  duckboard.  Dug 
back  into  the  wall  is  a  six-foot  square  room,  with 
anti-gas  blankets  hung  before  it.  The  curtain  which 
they  form  has  not  been  properly  adjusted;  from  be- 
tween its  edges  light  escapes.  I  lift  the  curtain  and 
enter. 

About  a  trench-made  table  a  group  of  officers  are 
seated.  All  of  them  are  strangers  to  me  except  my 
Major;  they're  the  new  chaps  who  are  taking 
over  from  us.  On  the  table  there  are  two  whiskey 
bottles,  one  empty  and  one  just  broached.  There's 
a  tin  jug  of  water,  a  medley  of  glasses,  piles  of 
matches  which  are  being  used  as  poker-chips  and  a 
dealt-out  hanii  of  cards. 

My  Major's  face,  which  is  usually  pale,  is  flushed 
tonight.  His  eyes  are  wrinkled  and  red  about  the 
edges;  but  the  eyes  themselves  are  like  two  blue 
pools  of  fire.  As  he  catches  sight  of  me,  he  raises 
his  glass,  "We  don't  know  where  we're  going,  Chris. 
Everything's  secret.  All  we  know  is  that  we  march 
tonight  and  that  they've  got  a  labour  battalion 
digging  graves  for  us  somewhere  behind  the  line. 
Oh  yes,  and  a  special  lorry  of  Victoria  Crosses  has 
arrived  at  Corps.  We're  storm-troops,  my  boy, 
and  going  to  be  in  it  right  up  to  the  neck.  Where- 


THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET          59 

ever  we  march  and  whenever  we  fight,  here's  the 
old  toast,  'Success  to  crime.'  " 

I  manage  to  let  him  know  that  our  horses  are 
outside  and  hint  that  it's  about  time  we  were  going. 

"Time!  There's  heaps  of  time",  he  says.  "We 
pulled  our  guns  out  early  this  evening.  The  battery 
is  all  packed  and  back  at  the  wagon-lines.  Heming 
will  have  it  standing  to  when  we  arrive.  Sit  down 
and  take  a  hand.  God  knows  when  we'll  get  a 
chance  of  a  round  of  poker  again." 

My  mind  is  not  on  the  game.  I'm  losing  steadily, 
but  I  don't  worry.  The  candles  drip  away  in  wax; 
others  take  their  places.  I  scarcely  see  the  cards; 
I  watch  only  one  face  through  the  wreaths  of 
tobacco-smoke  —  my  gallant  little  Major's.  I 
would  never  have  known  him  in  peace  life;  neither 
of  us  would  have  considered  the  other  quite  his 
sort.  He  looks  like  a  cross  between  a  clown  and  an 
ostler.  He's  very  small  and  slight;  his  legs  are 
bowed  with  too  much  riding.  If  one  were  to  see 
him  in  civilian  dress,  it  would  seem  right  that  he 
should  be  chewing  a  straw.  His  face  is  white  as 
death  and  terribly  worn.  His  hair  is  sandy  and 
thin  in  places.  His  teeth  are  filled  with  chunks  of 
gold  and  not  very  regular.  His  uniforms  are  never 
smart;  after  he's  had  them  a  week,  they're  always 
torn  and  stained.  He's  like  a  bantam  cock;  he 
makes  up  in  spirit  what  he  misses  in  height.  He 
says  "Good-bye"  to  his  temper  on  the  first  provo- 
cation and  is  always  most  handsomely  sorry  after- 
wards. He's  adored  and  dreaded  by  his  men.  He's 


60          THE    TEST   OF   SCARLET 

the  best  field-gunner  for  open  warfare  in  the  whole 
Canadian  Corps.  His  superior  officers  twit  and 
admire  him.  He  has  an  extraordinary  talent  for 
collaring  affection.  One  trusts  his  judgment  ab- 
solutely and  yet  follows  him  with  a  feeling  that  he 
must  be  protected.  Life  hasn't  been  very  good  to 
him;  he's  not  particular  as  to  whether  or  no  he 
survives  the  fighting!  There  used  to  be  a  girl  in  the 
background  —  Well,  there's  no  harm  in  telling.  He 
would  write  ten  letters  to  every  one  that  he  received 
from  her.  He  was  fearfully  humble  about  her. 
"You  wouldn't  expect  a  girl",  he  used  to  say  "to 
write  very  often  to  such  an  ugly  pup  as  I  am." 
When  he  spoke  like  that  he  would  grin  self- 
derisively  and  purposely  show  all  his  gold  stoppings. 
He  went  home  on  leave  to  England  six  months  ago 
determined  to  make  sure  of  her  and  to  bring  matters 
to  a  crisis.  She  met  him  with  the  news  that  she  was 
going  to  be  married  to  an  officer  whom  we  all  knew 
to  be  a  quitter.  She  begged  him  to  be  present  at 
the  wedding  so  that  people  might  not  talk.  He  went 
to  the  wedding  and  returned  to  the  Front  six  days 
ahead  of  time.  Since  then  he's  seemed  to  be  more 
white  and  small  and  bow-legged  than  ever. 

I'm  the  only  man  who  knows  what  lies  behind 
his  life.  We're  the  best  of  friends  and,  when  we're 
in  the  line,  we  always  sleep  in  the  same  dug-out  — 
which  occasions  a  certain  amount  of  jealousy  among 
the  other  officers.  When  we're  on  the  march,  he  has 
to  follow  the  routine  etiquette  and  share  his  billets 
with  the  Captain.  I  hate  to  see  him  go  up  front  for 


THE    TEST    OF   SCARLET          61 

fear  he  should  die.  He  shares  the  same  fear  for  me, 
and  is  continually  inventing  excuses  for  getting  me 
on  the  wire  when  I'm  forward.  God  created  him  a 
caricature  —  the  potter's  thumb  slipped  in  the 
moulding  of  his  clay;  but  to  make  amends  God  gave 
him  the  heart  of  a  lion.  You  love  him,  protect  him, 
declare  him  "quaint",  but  never  for  a  moment  do 
you  cease  to  admire  him  with  a  strangely  simple 
and  passionate  loyalty.  He's  as  straight  as  John 
the  Baptist;  it  would  be  impossible  to  tell  him  a 
lie. 

We  have  a  race-horse  in  our  battery  which  the 
Major  uses  as  his  charger  —  a  dainty,  fine-boned 
aristocrat  of  a  fellow,  red  and  lean  as  a  rusty  sword. 
When  our  little  Major  rides  him,  leading  his  battery 
down  the  long  white  roads  of  France,  strangers  halt 
to  gaze  at  the  almost  childish  figure  with  the  short 
bowed  legs,  wondering  how  he  ever  contrived  to 
climb  up  so  high.  At  the  head  of  his  battery,  where 
he  ought  to  appear  most  imposing,  he  looks  more 
like  a  jockey  than  a  field-officer.  It  doesn't  matter 
what  strangers  wonder  or  what  he  looks  like,  now 
that  we're  bound  on  a  death  and  glory  adventure 
there's  no  man  to  whom  we  would  sooner  entrust  or 
for  whom  we  would  sooner  lay  down  our  lives.  We 
forget  the  carelessness  of  the  potter's  thumb  and 
remember  only  the  stoutness  of  heart  which  the 
feeble  body  hides.  His  name  is  Wraith  —  Charlie 
Wraith;  and  his  age  —  .  I  should  guess  him  to  be 
thirty,  though  three  and  a  half  years  of  war  have  so 
battered  his  body  that  he  looks  forty-five. 


62  THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

At  last  the  game  ends.  It's  eleven  o'clock;  we 
march  at  midnight  and  can  just  reach  the  wagon- 
lines  by  short-cuts  and  hard  riding.  The  Major 
has  been  in  luck;  he's  pocketing  all  the  winnings. 
The  glasses  are  filled  for  a  final  toast.  The  new 
Major  who  is  taking  over  from  us,  raises  his  glass, 
"Here's  to  Hell  with  the  Kaiser  and,  if  you've  got 
to  die,  may  you  all  die  smiling." 

We  laugh  as  we  make  a  no  heeler  of  it;  dying 
might  be  the  merriest  of  sports.  But  to  me  —  I 
can't  help  thinking  of  that  laddie,  a  single  day  at 
the  Front,  lying  beneath  a  saddle-blanket  with  his 
throat  cut  and  that  amazed  expression  of  protest  in 
his  staring  eyes. 

We've  climbed  out  of  the  trench  and  stand 
looking  down  at  the  faces  clustered  in  the  angle 
formed  by  the  lifted  curtain.  A  few  paces  to  my 
left  a  cross  shows  plainly,  upon  which  is  written, 
"Here  lies  an  Unknown  British  Soldier."  Un- 
known !  A  hundred  years  from  now  we  shall  all  be 
unknown.  We  shall  be  massed  together  in  an 
anonymous  glory  as  "the  heroes  who  stormed  the 
Vimy  Ridge."  It  won't  mean  any  more  to  be  re- 
membered as  John  Smith  than  merely  as  "An  Un- 
known British  Soldier"  who  did  his  duty  faithfully. 

"Good-luck",  the  faces  in  the  candle-light  cry. 

"Cheerio",  we  answer.  But  the  words  which  are 
in  all  our  minds  are,  "Those  about  to  die,  salute 
thee." 

Waving  our  hands,  we  turn  away.  The  old  race- 
horse, Fury,  from  a  hundred  yards  has  recognised 


THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET          63 

his  master's  voice  and  whinnies.  With  a  pat  on  the 
neck  and  some  coaxing  words  we  get  mounted,  and 
walk  carefully  through  the  pit-falls  of  craters  till 
we  strike  the  road,  when  we  grip  with  our  knees  and 
set  off  at  the  gallop. 

Beneath  the  moonlight  the  chalk  of  the  shell- 
ploughed  battlefield  creates  the  illusion  of  a  country 
under  snow,  spreading  beneath  the  velvet  darkness 
for  miles.  The  horses  are  impatient  and  refuse  to 
be  reined  in.  They  need  no  guiding.  With  Fury 
in  the  lead,  they  leap  trenches  and  take  short-cuts 
where  we  would  hesitate. 

Ahead  of  us  through  the  shadows  we  discover  the 
battery  drawn  up  in  line,  not  a  light  or  so  much  as 
a  cigarette  showing  for  fear  our  doings  should  be 
betrayed  to  the  enemy  planes.  Heming  rides  out 
as  we  approach.  He  salutes  the  Major  smartly. 
"Just  in  the  nick  of  time,  sir;  our  battery  leads  and 
we  march  as  a  brigade.  There  are  no  route  orders. 
Everything's  secret.  The  Colonel  alone  knows 
where  we're  going;  even  he  doesn't  know  beyond 
tonight." 

The  adjutant  gallops  up  and  reins  in  impor- 
tantly. "The  Colonel's  compliments,  and  he's 
waiting  for  you,  sir.  He  wants  to  know  what's  the 
delay." 

"No  delay",  says  the  Major  curtly,  and  wheels 
about  to  face  the  battery. 

"Stand  to  your  horses",  he  orders.  "Gunners 
and  drivers  prepare  to  mount.  .  .  .  Mount."  There's 
a  jingling  of  stirrups  and  the  sound  of  men  leaping 


64          THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

to  their  places.  As  they  sit  to  attention  on  the 
limbers  and  in  the  saddles,  all  grows  silent. 

"Column  of  route  from  the  right.  Walk. 
March",  the  Major  commands. 

The  horses  of  A  Sub-section  gun-team  throw 
their  weight  into  the  collars.  There's  a  commotion 
of  prancing  in  the  darkness  and  the  merciless  sound 
of  the  cracking  of  whips;  then  through  the  shadows 
the  big  bays  of  A  Sub  strain  forward  and  take 
shape;  the  B.  C.  party  gallops  to  the  head  of  the 
column  and  we're  off  on  our  mysterious  march  in 
pursuit  of  the  greatest  of  high  adventures. 


THERE'S  no  end  of  a  thrill  in  night-marching, 
if  one  doesn't  get  too  much  of  it.  One  feels 
curiously  winged  when  mounted  in  the  darkness,  as 
though  the  limitations  to  speed,  space  and  possi- 
bility had  broken  down.  The  present  merges  with 
the  past  and  with  eternity.  Doors  open  in  the 
night,  giving  entrance  to  previous  incarnations. 
The  mounted  men  are  a  robber-band;  the  guns  are 
wagons  piled  with  loot.  The  villages,  lying 
flattened  by  shell-fire,  are  walled  towns  which  hide 
medieval  palaces.  The  country  through  which  we 
pass,  takes  on  a  hundred  exquisite  and  grotesque 
shapes,  the  one  melting  into  the  other  at  the  bidding 
of  the  imagination.  Everything  is  unusual,  every- 
thing is  shifting,  everything  is  distorted  and  capable 
of  being  changed  at  will.  One  has  an  extraordinary 
sense  of  timelessness  and  an  overwhelming  cer- 
tainty that  he  has  done  all  this  before,  marching 
to  the  sack  of  cities,  and  suffering  weariness  and 
death  for  unremembered  causes.  The  ghosts  of 
those  forgotten  tragedies  and  triumphs  throng 
about  him,  bewildering  him  with  a  faint  familiarity 
which  he  fails  to  associate  with  any  land  or  clime. 

On  that  first  night-march  we  had  to  keep  our 
column  closed  up  to  prevent  straggling,  since  on  a 

67 


68  THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

secret  march  to  an  unknown  destination  a  straggler 
inevitably  gets  lost.  If  a  vehicle  had  to  halt  to  refit 
harness,  to  have  a  horse  shod  or  for  any  other  cause, 
we  had  to  leave  out-riders  at  every  cross-road  to 
guide  it  back  to  the  main  body. 

The  first  part  of  our  journey  was  through  country 
we  had  fought  over,  every  contour  of  which, 
despite  the  darkness,  was  pictured  vividly  in  our 
minds.  We  passed  the  narrow  valley  behind  the 
Maison  Blanche,  in  which  our  battery  had  lain 
hidden  up  to  the  time  when  the  Ridge  was  'captured. 
We  passed  the  cross-roads  at  the  Ariane  Dump, 
where  we  used  to  assemble  midnight  after  midnight 
to  build  the  artillery  road  up  to  the  Front-line,  that 
our  guns  might  pass  forward  across  No  Man's  Land 
within  four  hours  of  the  start  of  the  offensive. 
Many  spots  were  memorable  to  us  because  of  men 
who  had  died.  It  was  over  there  to  the  right  that 
the  Hun  sniper  got  our  signalling  sergeant,  when  we 
were  observing  from  behind  the  Five  Hundred 
Crater.  It  was  over  there  to  the  left  that  a  Hun 
shell  scored  a  direct  hit  on  B.  Sub's  gun-pit  and 
sent  all  the  gun-detachment  west.  Though  we  were 
to  forget  these  homes  that  we  have  had  in  the  mud, 
our  horses  remember  and  remind  us;  each  time 
they  pass  one  of  their  old  wagon-lines,  they  try  to 
turn  in  off  the  road  from  force  of  habit. 

Through  the  mist  and  moonlight  we  can  just 
make  out  the  twin  towers,  blunted  and  splintered, 
of  Mount  St.  Eloi.  They  look  like  the  thumb  and 
index-finger  of  a  solemn  hand,  pointing  heavenward. 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET          69 

One  tower  is  tall  and  defiant;  the  other  has  been 
shorn  by  shell-fire.  The  Huns  commenced  their 
work  of  destruction  during  the  Franco-Prussian 
war;  since  this  war  started,  they  have  done  their 
utmost  to  complete  it,  even  sending  over  bombing- 
planes  for  that  purpose.  They  have  a  good  mili- 
tary reason,  for  the  towers  command  a  panoramic 
view  of  forty  miles  of  country.  But  still  the  towers 
stand,  exclaiming  in  a  valiant  gesture  of  archi- 
tectural oratory  that  God  still  dwells  beyond  the 
clouds. 

In  the  hollow,  between  Mount  St.  Eloi  and  the 
road  which  we  travel,  lies  God's  Acre,  with  its 
endless  forest  of  white  crosses.  It  is  there  that 
very  many  of  the  pals  who  have  served  with  us  are 
taking  their  last  rest.  They  are  wrapped  in  the 
army  blankets  which  made  so  many  journeys  with 
them.  Each  has  a  little  scooped  out  hole,  three 
feet  beneath  the  ground  and  only  just  big  enough 
to  take  his  body.  The  blanket  is  pulled  up  over  the 
face  and  hurriedly  sewn  into  place  for  fear  the 
sleeper  should  stir  and  be  cold  beneath  the  sod.  As 
I  gaze  through  the  darkness  towards  the  hollow,  I 
can  feel  the  wounds  of  the  sleeping  men.  There's 
Bennet  with  a  bullet  through  the  centre  of  his 
forehead;  that  happened  when  we  were  observing 
from  Sap  29  in  front  of  Ecurie.  There's  Gordon, 
who  came  back  from  a  gay  leave  in  Paris  to  have 
his  leg  shattered  at  the  entrance  to  the  Bentata 
Tunnel.  How  he  made  us  laugh  the  night  before 
he  died  with  his  account  of  "ze  lady  wiz  ze  vite 


70          THE    TEST   OF   SCARLET 

furs",  who  tried  to  make  him  pay  for  her  dinner 
at  the  Cafe  de  la  Paix!  And  there's  Athol,  who 
was  Brigade  medical  officer  when  we  occupied  the 
railroad  in  front  of  Farbus.  Brigade  headquarters 
were  on  the  Ridge  and  the  batteries  were  in  the 
plain.  The  moment  he  saw  that  we  were  being 
strafed,  he  would  come  racing  down  through  the 
shell-fire  to  our  assistance.  He  got  smashed  to 
atoms  when  he  was  binding  up  some  of  our  chaps 
in  a  blown-in  dug-out;  there  was  nothing  but  his 
face  left  undamaged.  I  wonder  why  it  is  that  I 
still  walk  the  earth  while  they  sleep  there  so  quietly. 
We  all  took  the  same  risks.  We  all  dreamt  of  the 
same  adventure  —  the  adventure  on  which  we  now 
are  bound  —  of  the  day  when  trench-warfare 
would  end  and  we  should  break  the  German  line, 
and  take  our  guns  into  action  at  the  gallop.  Do 
they  strain  their  ears  where  they  lie  so  narrowly 
as  they  catch  the  rumble  of  our  departing  guns? 
Do  they  push  back  the  earth  from  their  sunken 
eyes,  raising  themselves  on  their  elbows  to  listen? 
Dick  Dirk  is  there  by  now  —  he  who  returned 
ahead  of  time  from  Blighty  because  he  wanted  to 
"go  straight  for  her."  His  house  underground  is 
newer  than  the  others.  Does  he  wish  us  luck,  or 

does  he  pay  us  no  attention? No,  they  do 

not  stir.  They  lie  heedless  and  silent.  Having 
done  their  bit,  they  are  contented,  for  they  were 
very  tired.  As  the  hollow  is  swallowed  up  in  the 
all-surrounding  pool  of  night,  I  look  back  just  once 
to  where  my  dead  companions  rest,  and  again  the 


THE    TEST    OF   SCARLET          71 

words  take  shape  in  my  mind,  "Those  about  to  die, 
salute  thee." 

We  wheel  out  on  to  the  straight  pave  road  which 
runs  like  an  arrow's  flight  from  Arras  to  St.  Pol.  In 
a  long  and  regular  line  on  either  side  stand  pol- 
larded trees,  marking  its  direction  for  miles.  They 
seem  gigantic  sentinels,  silent  and  impassive.  From 
all  directions,  from  main-roads  and  bye-roads, 
comes  the  muffled  roar  of  transport  pouring  along 
every  artery  of  travel  to  the  same  unknown  bourne 
to  which  we  journey.  A  tremendous  movement  of 
troops  is  taking  place  —  taking  place  under  cover 
of  darkness,  anonymously,  timed  absolutely  and 
without  hurry.  If  we  doubted  that  a  big  offensive 
was  on  foot,  we  do  not  doubt  it  now.  But  whose  is 
the  controlling  brain?  Rumour  says  that  even  our 
Corps  Commander  has  had  no  warning  as  to  our 
ultimate  destination.  The  Sergeant-Major  rides 
back  to  tell  me  that  the  Major  wants  me  at  the  head 
of  the  column.  I  trot  forward  and  find  that  he  is 
walking,  while  his  groom  leads  Fury  a  few  paces 
behind.  I  salute,  dismount  and  hand  over  my  horse 
to  a  signaller. 


II 

THE  Major  wants  to  talk  —  he  feels  lonely. 
We  begin  by  making  guesses  as  to  the  scope 
of  the  new  offensive.  We  converse  very  quietly 
for  fear  we  should  be  overheard  by  any  of  our  men. 
A  corps  order  has  been  published  forbidding  any 
discussion  of  the  object  of  our  present  movements. 
Such  discussion,  if  it  takes  place  in  public,  comes 
under  the  heading  of  "Giving  information  to  the 
enemy."  It's  impossible  to  say  who  of  the  people 
with  whom  we  associate  are  spies.  Many  a  good 
life  has  been  thrown  away  as  the  result  of  careless 
and  boastful  conversations  in  estaminets  and 
officers'  tea-rooms.  Some  bounder,  out  of  the 
line  for  a  day,  wants  to  air  his  superior  knowledge 
of  doings  up  front;  he  talks  with  a  raised  voice  in 
order  to  impress  strangers  who  may  or  may  not  be 
in  British  uniforms.  In  any  case,  the  uniform  is  no 
proof  of  integrity;  many  an  English-speaking  Hun 
has  passed  secretly  through  our  lines  in  the  uniform 
of  the  man  he  has  murdered.  The  result  of  such 
loose  speaking  is  that  the  raid,  which  ought  to  have 
succeeded,  fails.  The  Huns  are  forewarned;  their 
trenches  are  stiff  with  machine-guns  and  many  of 
our  men  go  west. 

Every  precaution  is  being  taken  this  time  that  no 
information  of  importance  to  the  enemy  shall  leak 

72 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET  73 

out.  In  the  first  place,  we  know  nothing  ourselves; 
in  the  second,  we  are  forbidden  to  conjecture  out 
loud.  Though  we  recognise  landmarks  in  the  land- 
scape, we  are  under  orders  not  to  mention  the  fact. 
We  are  only  to  march  when  night  has  blindfolded 
our  eyes;  our  tongues,  under  pain  of  court-martial, 
are  to  be  kept  silent. 

To  judge  by  the  north-easterly  direction  in  which 
we  are  marching,  we  might  be  going  up  to  Flanders 
to  recapture  the  Hun  gains  at  Kernel.  The  Major 
believes,  however,  that  our  present  direction  gives 
no  indication,  as  we're  probably  only  going  to  a 
railroad  junction  at  which  we  shall  entrain.  He 
thinks  that  our  goal  lies  to  the  south.  It  may  be 
the  Rheims  salient,  in  which  case  we  shall  be  in 
entirely  new  territory,  fighting  with  the  French  and 
joining  up  with<  the  Americans,  concerning  whom 
we  are  exceedingly  optimistic  and  curious.  On  the 
other  hand  there  are  rumours  that  the  Americans 
are  taking  over  from  the  French  in  the  Argonne 
sector,  thus  releasing  many  French  veteran  troops 
who  will  be  behind  us  to  back  us  up  in  the  counter- 
stroke  of  which  we  are  the  hammer-head.  One 
fact  is  known  definitely  —  Canadians  have  been 
sent  north  to  Ypres;  but  whether  to  fool  the  Hun 
or  because  the  thrust  is  to  be  made  there,  remains 
uncertain. 

The  Hun  knows  that  the  Canadians  have  been 
trained  to  be  the  point  of  the  fighting-wedge;  he, 
therefore,  knows  that  where  we  are  there  the  blow 
is  to  be  struck.  All  summer  he  has  made  every 


74          THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

effort  to  keep  track  of  our  position  in  the  line,  his 
object  being  that  he  may  have  his  reserves  rightly 
placed  to  push  back  our  thrust.  For  the  war  on  the 
Western  Front  has  become  entirely  a  game  of  the 
handling  of  reserves.  Neither  side  has  sufficient 
man-power  to  defend  its  trench-system  if  an  attack 
were  to  take  place  all  along  its  front.  So  it  remains 
for  the  attacker  to  muster  his  storm-troops  with 
such  stealth  that  the  people  to  be  attacked  may  be 
kept  unaware  of  what  is  planned  against  them  and 
may  be  tricked  into  withdrawing  their  reserves  to  a 
place  remotest  from  the  point  where  the  blow  is  to 
fall.  If  such  strategy  succeeds,  the  attacker  has 
the  element  of  surprise  in  his  favour  and  gains  so 
much  ground  in  the  impetus  of  his  first  rush  that,  by 
the  time  the  enemy  reserves  can  be  brought  up,  the 
entire  defense  has  become  disorganised. 

The  great  aim  of  the  new  strategy  is  to  make  a 
gap  —  to  get  through  the  enemy  so  that  his  right 
and  left  flanks  are  out  of  touch  and  railroad  com- 
munications in  his  rear  can  be  cut. 

The  new  strategy  was  first  practised  by  our  Third 
Army  in  its  November  Drive  against  Cambrai;  that 
drive  failed  for  want  of  sufficient  reinforcements  to 
back  it  up.  Until  that  time  the  Allies  had  always 
gone  after  what  were  known  as  "limited  objectives", 
such  as  high  ground,  trench-systems,  villages, 
salients.  When  the  objective  had  been  taken,  the 
attack  rested.  The  Vimy  Ridge  was  a  limited  ob- 
jective. We  didn't  want  to  break  the  Hun  line; 
what  we  desired  was  the  Ridge,  because  it  com- 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET  75 

manded  a  great  enemy  plain  on  the  other  side.  For 
two  months  before  we  actually  struck,  we  adver- 
tised the  fact  that  we  were  going  to  strike  by  the 
intensity  of  our  incessant  shell-fire.  Systematically, 
day  by  day  and  night  by  night,  we  cut  the  enemy's 
wire-entanglements,  blew  up  his  dumps,  mined 
beneath  his  front-line,  pounded  his  cement  machine- 
gun  emplacements,  harassed  his  means  of  com- 
munication and  stole  his  morale  by  making  his  life 
perilous  and  wretched.  He  knew  as  well  as  we  did 
what  was  planned;  his  only  uncertainty  was  as  to 
the  exact  hour  at  which  the  attack  was  to  be 
launched.  We  kept  him  wearily  guessing,  and  wore 
his  nerves  to  a  frazzle  by  putting  on  intense  bom- 
bardments at  inconvenient  times.  Usually  these 
bombardments  took  place  at  dawn,  lasted  for  fifteen 
minutes  and  had  all  the  appearance  of  being  the 
genuine  zero  hour.  When  our  barrage  had 
descended,  he  would  man  his  trenches,  call  up  his 
reserves  and  set  all  the  machinery  for  his  counter- 
thrust  working.  Then,  as  suddenly  as  it  had 
started,  the  hell  would  die  down  into  the  intensest 
quiet. 

The  new  strategy  does  not  advertise  the  point  to 
be  attacked.  It  does  not  cut  wire-entanglements 
with  shell-fire  many  days  before  the  show  com- 
mences; it  tramples  down  obstacles  with  battalions 
of  tanks  at  the  very  moment  that  the  infantry  are 
advancing.  It  does  not  set  out  to  capture  a  given 
and  solitary  object;  its  ambition  is  to  double  up 
the  enemy's  line  and  to  penetrate  as  far  as  success 


76  THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

will  allow.  The  new  strategy  is  in  all  things  more 
stealthy,  more  tiger-like,  more  reckless,  more 
deadly;  its  most  dangerous  feature  is  the  use  which 
it  makes  of  surprise. 

This  new  method  of  fighting  has  developed  out  of 
the  necessity  for  defeating  a  heavily  entrenched 
enemy.  It  is  a  method  which  the  Allies  at  last  are 
able  to-  adopt  because  of  the  almost  limitless  re- 
sources in  man-power  which  America  has  placed  at 
their  disposal.  For  the  Western  Front  to  be  rightly 
understood,  must  be  regarded  as  a  banjo-string, 
composed  of  living  men  holding  hands  from  Switz- 
erland to  the  English  Channel.  Under  pressure  the 
string  may  give  and  give,  but  it  must  never  break. 
T he  moment  it  breaks,  the  thing  happens  which 
takes  place  when  a  banjo-string  snaps  —  it  curls 
up  towards  the  ends  and  leaves  a  gap.  The  only 
power  that  can  save  the  day  when  the  banjo-string 
has  snapped,  is  the  masterly  strategic  employment 
of  the  reserves.  The  reserves  may  stop  the  rush 
by  selling  their  lives  to  a  man,  or  they  may  do  it  by 
luring  the  attacker  on  until  he  has  advanced  beyond 
his  strength.  But  if  the  side  attacked  has  guessed 
wrongly  as  to  the  point  to  be  attacked,  so  that  its 
reserves  are  at  a  distance  when  the  disaster  happens, 
a  calamitous  retreat  on  either  flank  will  have  to  be 
begun  or  the  jig  is  up.  To  compel  this  retreat  is 
the  purpose  of  Foch's  present  thrust. 

In  adopting  these  hide-and-seek  tactics  of  night- 
marches  we  are  borrowing  a  lesson  from  the  Hun. 
He  has  already  tried  to  do  precisely  what  we  now 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET  77 

intend  to  accomplish.  In  his  great  drive  of  the 
spring,  when  he  all  but  took  Rheims  and  Amiens,  he 
massed  his  storm-troops  seventy  miles  behind  his 
objective.  Day  by  day  he  kept  them  hidden  from 
spy  and  aeroplane  observation,  moving  them  only 
by  night.  His  railroad  and  transportation  arrange- 
ments were  so  perfect  that,  commencing  at  dusk,  he 
was  able  to  fling  the  whole  weight  of  his  fighting- 
wedge  up  front  and  have  it  hammering  at  our  doors 
by  daylight. 

As  we  rode  beneath  the  August  night,  my  Major 
summed  up  the  situation:  " We're  trying  to  bluff 
the  Hun  into  expecting  us  up  north,  while  we  make 
for  the  south  as  fast  as  we  can  hurry.  I'll  tell  you 
what  it  is,  Chris;  we  can  affordto  die,  now  that  the 
Americans  are  behind  us  with  their  millions.  Be- 
lieve me,  before  this  month  is  ended,  there's  going 
to  be  some  tall  dying." 

That  phrase,  "We  can  afford  to  die",  arrested 
my  attention.  It  was  so  brutally  financial,  as 
though  human  lives  were  only  so  much  national 
capital,  and  not  the  focus-points  of  loyalties  and 
affections.  It  was  as  though  the  casualties  for  the 
military  year  could  be  apportioned  ahead  of  time, 
so  that  the  national  books  of  birth  and  death  might 
be  made  to  balance.  It  was  making  a  mathematical 
calculation  as  to  men's  uncalculated  and  individual 
sacrifice;  no  more  must  be  killed  in  any  given 
twelve  months  than  the  bodies  of  the  living  could 
re-supply.  And  yet 

Yes,  it  was  true:  for  the  first  time  in  the  history 


78          THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

of  the  war  we  could  afford  to  die.  During  the 
previous  four  years  we  had  died,  but  we  could  not 
afford  it.  We  had  had  to  be  careful  about  our 
deaths,  so  that  our  man-power  might  not  sink  below 
that  of  the  enemy  who  faced  us.  Now  at  last,  be- 
cause the  Americans  were  behind  us,  we  could  afford 
to  become  lavish  in  the  spending  of  our  lives. 
Where  one  British  soldier  fell,  three  American  boys 
would  spring  up.  Though  we  became  sightless, 
soundless,  nameless,  trodden  by  shells  into  the 
oozing  horror  of  the  mud,  other  idealists  of  another 
nation,  but  still  of  our  tongue  and  blood,  would 
cross  by  the  bridge  our  bodies  had  made,  fighting 
on  and  up  till  the  decency  for  which  we  had  perished 
was  won.  Viewed  in  this  light,  the  knowledge  that 
we  could  afford  to  die  became  not  brutal,  but 
glorious. 

The  Major  whistled  softly,  strutting  through  the 
darkness  on  his  little  bowed  legs.  The  thought 
that  they  could  afford  to  let  him  die  caused  his 
spirits  to  rise. 


Ill 

KEEP  to  the  Right",  and,  after  an  interval, 
"Ha-alt!"  Passed  back  down  the  unseen 
column  ahead  of  us  come  the  hoarse  cries,  followed 
by  a  sudden  cessation  of  wheels  and  then,  sharp 
and  emphatic,  "Dismount  the  drivers." 

Our  Major  shouts  back  the  orders  to  the  Ser- 
geant-Major;  from  him  they  are  picked  up  by  the 
Section-Commanders  and  Numbers  One.  We  listen 
to  them  as  they  travel  down  the  battery  through  the 
darkness,  altered  in  tone  and  made  more  faint  as 
each  new  voice  takes  up  the  cry.  The  B.  C.  party 
back  their  ridden  and  led  animals  into  the  grass  on 
the  side  of  the  road,  loosen  the  reins  and  allow  their 
beasts  to  graze.  This  is  the  first  halt  that  we  have 
made,  so  it  should  be  long  enough  to  give  us  time  to 
check  over  the  fitting  of  the  harness  and  to  make 
sure  that  everything  is  correct.  I  climb  into  the 
saddle  to  ride  down  the  line;  as  I  turn  away,  the 
Major  calls  to  me,  "Oh,  Chris,  one  minute! "  I  bend 
down  to  catch  his  words:  "Find  out  what's  happened 
to  Bully  Beef  and  Suzette." 

What's  happened  to  Bully  Beef  and  Suzette? 
That  question  has  been  in  my  mind,  in  the  mind  of 
the  Major,  and  probably  in  every  gunner's  and 
driver's  mind  ever  since  we  marched  out  from  the 
wagon-lines.  It's  dead  against  all  army  orders  that 

79 


8o          THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

a  woman  and  child  should  accompany  a  fighting  unit 
into  action.  Since  the  war  started,  camp-followers  of 
whatever  sort  have  been  forbidden.  From  time  to 
time,  even  the  dogs  in  the  army  areas  have  been  shot 
because  many  of  them  were  spies,  carrying  messages 
to  the  Germans  across  No  Man's  Land  at  night. 
It's  dead  against  every  dictate  of  decency  and  hu- 
manity that  fighting-men  should  take  non-combat- 
tants  with  them  into  the  kind  of  furious  carnage 

towards  which  we    .     But,  somehow,   Bully 

Beef  and  Suzette  do  not  seem  to  be  non-combat- 
tants;  we  regard  them  as  soldiers.  They  march 
with  us  as  representatives  of  the  impassioned  soul 
of  France.  Yes,  and  more  than  that  —  for  they 
stand  to  us  for  everything  tender  and  kindly  that 
would  have  been  ours,  had  we  not  been  selected  to 
die.  Suzette  is  to  us  what  Joan  of  Arc  must  have 
been  to  her  soldiers  —  the  dream  of  the  woman  we 
would  have  married  had  Fate  been  more  lavish  with 
life.  And  Bully  Beef  —  he's  the  might-have-been 
child  of  every  boy  and  man  in  the  battery. 

Gun-carriages  and  wagons  have  been  pulled  well 
over  to  the  right,  clear  of  the  pave  road,  so  as  not  to 
cause  a  block  in  the  passing  traffic.  It's  difficult  to 
see  them  in  detail  on  account  of  the  blackness 
caused  by  the  wall  of  trees  on  either  side.  One  can 
just  make  out  the  heads  of  horses  and  the  huddled 
figures  of  men  on  the  limbers,  too  tired  to  know  that 
we  have  halted.  Usually  when  I  enquire,  I  find  that 
the  sleepers  were  on  guard  or  picket  the  night 
previous.  We  let  them  sleep  on.  They  are  wise; 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET          81 

none  of  us  know  how  far  we  have  to  go  or  how  many 
nights  of  wakefulness  lie  before  us. 

Behind  the  darkness  I  can  hear  the  drivers  lift- 
ing up  the  feet  of  their  horses  and  feeling  for  stones. 
Good  boys,  these  drivers!  They  love  their  beasts 
and  speak  to  them  as  pals.  There's  so  much  disci- 
pline that  one  doesn't  get  much  time  for  loving  in 
the  army.  I  remember  a  march  on  this  same  road 
when  the  drivers  were  so  frozen  that  they  had  to  be 
lifted  out  of  their  saddles;  no  one  had  the  strength 
to  unfasten  a  bit  till  he  had  thawed  his  fingers  be- 
tween the  horse's  back  and  the  saddle-blanket.  Yet 
there  wasn't  one  man  who  quit  when  we  limped  into 
our  muddy  standings.  Every  gunner  and  driver 
went  to  work  on  the  horses,  grooming  them  with  a 
will  and  trying  to  make  them  comfortable  before  he 
thought  of  himself  —  and  this,  not  because  it  was 
ordered,  but  because  he  realised  through  his  own 
misery  the  forlornness  of  his  four-footed  comrades. 
Good  boys,  all  of  them !  I  think  the  Lord  of  Com- 
passion, when  the  final  reckoning  comes,  will  re- 
member kindnesses  even  to  horses.  When  he 
judges  those  drivers,  he'll  not  forget  the  bitter  cold 
of  that  winter's  march  and  what  it  meant  to  stand 
grooming  in  the  snow  and  sleet  when  you  were  bitten 
to  the  bone  and  almost  crying  with  misery.  So  he'll 
pass  over  their  swearing  and  the  times  when  they 
got  drunk,  and  he'll  say,  pointing  to  the  horses  who 
will  also  be  in  Heaven,  "Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto 
the  least  of  these,  my  brethren,  ye  did  it  unto  me." 
If  that  should  happen,  the  drivers  will  be  most 


82  THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

awfully  surprised,  because  according  to  their 
standards  they  only  did  their  duty. 

Some  of  the  chaps  in  my  section,  which  is  the 
leading  and  senior  section  of  the  battery,  try  to  ask 
me  questions  as  I  pass. 

"Are  we  going  far,  sir?" 

"Are  we  going  out  for  training?" 

"Do  you  think,  sir,  that  it's  the  Big  Push  at  last?" 

I  cannot  see  their  faces,  but  I  recognise  them  by 
their  voices.  They  are  drawn  from  every  class  of 
society.  Some  of  them  were  college  boys,  some 
were  mechanics,  some  day-laborers,  some  adven- 
turers, some  came  out  of  gaol  to  join.  Now  only 
one  quality  lifts  one  man  above  another  —  his 
courage.  Their  questions  are  asked  from  all  kinds 
of  motives  —  friendliness,  curiosity,  nervousness. 
I  am  conscious  of  an  atmosphere  of  tension  through- 
out the  battery.  It  seems  a  shame  that  they  should 
be  told  nothing.  In  no  other  game  in  the  world 
would  you  march  men  to  their  death,  without  so 
much  as  warning  them  that  it  was  to  their  death 
that  they  were  going.  From  one  of  my 
questioners  —  a  man  who  was  wounded  eight 
months  ago  and  has  just  re-joined  us  —  I  pick  up  a 
significant  piece  of  information. 

"I  can  see  you're  not  telling,  sir,  but  I  know.  It's 
to  the  Big  Push  that  we're  going.  And  here's  why 
I  know  —  when  we  left  England,  they  were  empty- 
ing every  camp  —  sending  drafts  to  France  secretly 
every  night.  When  I  got  to  our  Corps  Reinforce- 
ment Camp,  not  thirty  kilometres  from  here,  I 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET          83 

found  the  place  so  jammed  that  you  could  hardly 
find  a  space  to  spread  your  blanket.  With  the  men 
they  have  there,  the  Corps  must  be  fifty  per  cent 
over-strength.  That  means  just  one  thing,  sir  — 
that  we're  getting  ready  for  fifty  per  cent 
casualties." 

"Perhaps",  I  answer  him,  "but,  if  I  were  you,  I 
wouldn't  talk  about  it." 

I  reach  the  centre  section,  which  Tubby  Grain  is 
commanding.  Tubby  is  a  plump  little  officer  and 
rides  a  wicked  little  Indian  pony  as  well-fleshed  as 
himself. 

"The  Major's  compliments,  and  he  wants  you  to 
look  over  your  section  and  report  on  it",  I  tell  him. 

His  reply  is,  as  usual,  insubordinate  and  cheery. 
"Holy,  jumping  cat-fish!  What  does  the  Major 
think  I  am?  Don't  I  always  look  over  my  section 
when  there's  a  halt?"  And  then  confidentially,  "  I 
say,  old  top,  what  about  Bully  Beef  and  Suzette?" 

I  tell  him  that  I'm  on  my  way  to  find  out.  As  I 
ride  away  he  shouts  after  me  the  latest  catchword 
from  Blighty,  "  How's  your  father?  "  To  which, 
if  you  are  in  the  know,  the  proper  reply  is,  "  Very 
well,  thanks.  He  still  has  his  baggy  pants  on. " 
I'm  in  too  much  of  a  hurry  to  give  the  correct 
countersign,  so  Tubby  facetiously  sends  a  mounted 
bombadier  after  me,  who  catches  me  up  while  I'm 
speaking  to  Gus  Edwine,  the  commander  of  the  left 
and  rear  section.  The  bombadier  salutes  without  a 
smile  and  sits  to  attention,  waiting  for  me  to  take 
notice  of  him  in  the  darkness. 


84          THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

"  Well,  what  is  it,  Bombadier?  " 

"  Mr.  Grain's  compliments,  sir,  and  if  you  meet 
his  father,  would  you  tell  him  that  he  really  ought 
to  have  his  baggy  pants  on  these  cold  nights." 

Gus  gaffaws  and  steals  my  dynamite  by  sending  a 
return  message:  "  My  compliments  to  Mr.  Grain, 
and  tell  him  that  it's  all  right;  Suzette  is  repairing 
his  father's  baggy  pants."  Then  to  me,  "  But  how 
about  Suzette?  I  went  to  look  for  her  three  hours 
before  we  left  the  wagon-lines;  her  bivouac  was 
pulled  down,  and  she  and  Bully  Beef  weren't  any- 
where in  sight.  I  didn't  like  to  ask  because . 

Well,  you  know,  if  we're  going  to  buck  Army  regu- 
lations, there  are  some  things  that  most  of  us 
shouldn't  know  too  much  about.  If  the  General  or 
the  Colonel  asks  questions  and  you  don't  know,  you 
can't  tell.  Ignorance  saves  a  lot  of  lying.  " 

At  the  tail  of  the  column  I  find  the  transport  — 
the  G.  S.  wagons,  the  water-cart,  the  officers'  mess- 
cart,  the  cook-cart,  the  shoeing-smith's  cart  — 
looking  humpy  and  nomadic  as  a  travelling  circus. 
The  prisoners  are  there  on  foot  with  their  escort, 
A  group  of  stragglers  are  regaining  their  wind  be- 
fore repoxting  back  to  their  proper  sections.  Mon- 
grel curs,  which  we  have  adopted  in  our  travels,  yap 
down  at  me  from  the  tarpaulin-covered  mountains 
of  stores  or  run  sniffing  about  the  heels  of  the 
horses.  This  house-keeping  portion  of  our  military 
life  is  in  the  care  of  the  Captain.  It  is  here,  if  any- 
where, that  I  shall  get  the  news  I  want. 

I  find  Heming  with  the  Quartermaster,  directing 


THE   TEST   OF    SCARLET          85 

the  re-packing  of  some  bales  of  hay  which  have 
shifted  with  the  bumping  of  the  journey.  It  always 
makes  me  smile  to  watch  him  engaged  upon  an  un- 
imaginative and  practical  task;  he  still  has  the 
aloofness  of  the  artist.  Beneath  his  khaki  I  can 
still  discover  the  privileged  dreamer  whom  the  world 
flattered  and  who  scarcely  knew  how  to  tie  his  own 
shoe-lace.  He  has  compelled  himself  to  become 
practical;  but  if  the  war  were  to  end  tomorrow,  he 
would  at  once  cease  to  be  a  soldier  and  fall  back 
into  his  old  way  of  life.  I  believe  in  his  secret  heart 
it  is  just  that  falling  back  that  he  dreads;  out  here 
he  has  learnt  to  be  lean  as  a  rapier.  He  loathes  the 
thought  of  again  becoming  self-applauding  and 
flabby.  If  the  price  of  keeping  lean  is  "going  west" 
on  the  battlefield,  he  is  perfectly  content.  To  quote 
his  own  words,  "There's  nothing  leaner  than  a 
skeleton." 

"  Captain  Heming!" 

"Hulloa,  Chris!  Pretty  black,  isn't  it?  I  didn't 
see  you.  What's  your  trouble?" 

"A  message  from  the  Major."  I  sink  my  voice. 
"  He  wants  to  know  what  you've  done  about  Bully 
Beef  and  Suzette?" 

"Suzette!"  I  can't  see  his  face.  As  he  pro- 
nounces her  name,  he  sucks  the  air  through  his 
teeth  the  way  a  man  does  when  he  shudders.  Then, 
"Look  here,  does  the  Major  really  want  to  know 
what  I've  done  with  them?" 

"  He  told  me  to  find  out." 

"But  if  he  knows,  he  ought  to  take  action.    If  he 


86          THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

doesn't  take  action,  he  becomes  my  accomplice  and 
may  get  into  trouble  with  those  higher  up.  He'd 
better  take  it  for  granted  that  we  left  them  behind 
at  Vimy,  unless " 

"Unless  what?" 

"Unless  he  really  does  wish  that  we  had  left  them 
behind." 

"  So so  we  didn't  leave  them  behind?" 

"  Hand  your  horse  over  to  one  of  the  chaps,"  he 
says;  "  you  shall  see  for  yourself." 

We  go  on  foot  towards  the  wagon  on  which  the 
bales  of  hay  were  being  re-packed.  The  job  is  all 
finished  now;  the  tarpaulin  has  been  pulled  tightly 
over  the  top  and  roped  down.  The  Quartermaster 
is  standing  in  rear  of  the  wagon  as  though  he  were 
on  guard.  He's  an  old  soldier  who  has  fought 
through  many  wars;  he  wears  the  African  ribbon 
and  several  Indian  decorations.  He's  a  big,  com- 
fortable sort  of  man,  with  an  immense  stomach  and 
a  body  over  six  foot  high.  He  has  a  wart  on  the 
right  side  of  his  nose,  which  he  rubs  thoughtfully 
when  he  talks  to  you.  His  voice  is  thick,  as  though 
his  throat  were  grown  up  with  fat.  Of  all  our  non- 
commissioned officers  he's  the  kindest.  He  plays 
the  part  of  a  father  to  the  chaps,  and  has  saved 
many  a  young  soldier  from  going  on  the  wrong  slant. 
His  name  is  Dan  Turpin  —  "  Big  Dan."  The  only 
beast  of  sufficient  strength  to  carry  him  is  an  ex- 
Toronto  fire-engine  horse,  called  "Little  Dan"  — 
not  that  he  is  little,  but  to  distinguish  him  from  his 
master.  As  we  approach,  Big  Dan  is  singing  to 
himself  in  a  sepulchral  voice, 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET          87 

Old  soldiers  never  die 
They  simply  jade  away. 

It  would  take  more  than  a  drive  against  the  Huns  to 
get  Dan's  wind  up. 

"Quarter!" 

"  Yes  sir." 

We  hear  his  heels  click  together  and  the  jingle  of 
his  spurs. 

"  Is  the  wagon  re-packed  all  right?" 

"  All  correct,  sir." 

"  Just  loosen  the  flap  of  the  tarpaulin  at  the  back; 
I  want  to  see  for  myself." 

The  rope  securing  the  flap  is  untied  and  we  slip 
our  heads  under  the  tarpaulin.  Carefully,  so  that 
none  of  the  light  may  spill  on  to  the  road  and  give 
us  away  to  aeroplanes,  Heming  turns  on  his  flash. 
At  first  the  illumination  is  blinding;  then  one  sees 
that  the  bales  of  hay  have  been  so  stacked  as  to 
leave  a  hollow.  Inside  the  hollow  someone  stirs, 
sighs  and  turns  over,  disturbed  by  the  light.  The 
figure  is  slight  and  covered  by  an  officer's  trench- 
coat.  Heming  shifts  the  flash,  so  that  it  creeps 
along  the  body  and  reveals  the  face.  Suzette!  Her 
khaki  tunic  is  unhooked  and  unbuttoned  at  the 
neck.  Bully  Beef  lies  snuggled  in  her  arms,  with 
his  small  head  hidden  against  her  breast.  Her 
soldier's  cap  has  slipped  aside  and  her  hair,  which 
was  like  honey  and  sunshine,  has  been  cut  square 
against  the  neck.  From  beneath  the  trench-coat  I 
see  that  she  is  wearing  puttees.  I  understand  — 


88          THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

she  will  pass  for  a  man  now.  But  why  does  she 
want  to  accompany  us  into  danger?  Is  she  so  des- 
perately alone  and  fed-up  with  life?  And  Heming, 

why  does  he ?  She  opens  her  eyes  and  smiles 

sleepily,  knowing  that  we  are  friends. 

From  farther  up  the  column  we  hear  the  order 
being  shouted  back,  "  Get  mounted  the  drivers." 
The  flash  goes  out.  "  Good-night,  Suzette."  The 
tarpaulin  is  lowered  and  tied  into  place.  From  far 
ahead  comes  the  groaning  of  guns  and  ammunition- 
wagons  taking  up  the  march. 

All  night  as  I  ride,  there  burns  in  my  brain  the 
picture  of  that  refugee  French  girl  with  her  father- 
less child,  journeying  with  us  towards  the  Calvary 
from  which  all  the  civilian  world  is  fleeing.  She  is 
escaping  towards  death.  And  I  think  of  another 
mother,  no  less  a  soldier-woman,  who  fled  by 
Eastern  highways  that  she  might  bring  her  son 
back  to  the  death  from  which  she  fled,  in  order 
that  men  might  live  better. 

Suzette!  Why  does  she  accompany  us?  She 
knows  that  we  need  her  love,  perhaps.  That 
knowledge  brings  her  very  near  to  the  peasant 
mother  of  Nazareth. 


IV 

THE  dawn  stole  upon  us  like  a  ghost.  It  ran 
beside  us,  fell  behind,  dashed  on  ahead,  fol- 
lowing and  peering  from  behind  trees  and  ruins. 
Along  the  endless  road  we  crawled,  weary  and  spent. 
The  gunners  had  been  ordered  to  dismount  from  the 
limbers  to  ease  the  horses'  load.  The  out-riders  and 
officers  for  the  sake  of  example,  had  also  dismounted 
and  walked  ahead  of  their  chargers.  All  talking  had 
ceased.  We  stumbled  forward  like  somnambulists, 
pale  and  heavy-eyed.  Had  anyone  been  told  that 
we  were  storm-troops,  Foch's  Pets,  the  hammer- 
head of  the  attack,  moving  up  to  smash  the  Hun 
line,  he  would  have  laughed.  We  looked  listless, 
washed  out.  Now  and  then  a  man  would  ask  an 
officer,  "How  much  further,  sir?"  The  officer 
would  reply,  "  I  don't  know.  Not  much  further,  I 
should  think."  The  man's  head  would  sag  forward 
again  on  his  breast.  In  the  army  there  is  no  com- 
plaining, no  going  on  strike;  one  carries  on  and  on 
till  he  drops.  To  carry  on,  however  harsh  the  de- 
mands, and  not  to  drop  is  one's  pride. 

As  day  grew  whiter  and  the  sunrise  reddened,  we 
learnt  a  good  deal  about  the  condition  of  affairs 
that  night  had  masked.  Every  few  yards  through 
the  standing  wheat  new  lines  of  defences  had 
been  dug.  Trench-system  behind  trench-system 

89 


90          THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

stretched  for  miles,  scarring  the  greenness  of  the 
landscape.  They  were  all  of  recent  construction, 
for  the  earth  had  been  but  newly  turned.  Here,  be- 
hind a  wood  or  a  rise  of  ground,  a  battery  position 
had  been  selected  and  gun-pits  laid  out.  One  came 
to  what  looked  like  a  hay-stack  or  a  pile  of  tumbled 
logs,  only  to  find  that  it  was  a  machine-gun  nest, 
cunningly  chosen  to  command  a  valley  down  which 
an  advancing  enemy  must  march.  Beneath  grass  in 
ditches  wire-entanglements  had  been  hidden,  so  con- 
trived that  they  could  be  set  up  across  the  road  at  a 
moment's  notice,  to  obstruct  pursuing  cavalry.  One 
could  follow  the  reasoning  of  the  stealthy  mind 
which  had  woven  this  maze  of  destruction.  The 
enemy  would  have  maps  of  our  back-country 
worked  out  from  their  aeroplane  photographs. 
They  would  know  beforehand  each  dip  and  hollow 
where  artillery  and  machine-gun  resistance  might 
be  expected;  consequently  they  would  try  to  neu- 
tralise such  resistance  with  their  heavies  before 
they  sent  their  infantry  forward.  The  stealthy 
mind  had  argued  every  probability;  very  often  it 
had  arranged  its  strong  points  in  open  places,  where 
the  position  was  so  badly  chosen  that  it  would  not 
be  suspected.  It  became  plain  that  whatever  our 
game  might  be,  this  time  it  was  to  be  neck  or 
nothing.  The  Allies  might  be  planning  to  attack; 
but,  if  they  had  to  retire,  they  were  reckoning  on 
selling  every  yard  of  land  at  the  highest  cost  in 
lives.  All  the  machinery  for  the  shambles  was 
ready,  only  the  bodies  were  lacking.  One  did  not 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET          91 

require  to  be  highly  imaginative  to  picture  the  mur- 
der holes  these  woods  and  valleys  would  become 
when  once  the  slaughter  started.  For  someone  dis- 
aster was  brewing;  whether  for  ourselves  or  the 
Germans,  it  was  impossible  to  guess. 

Now  that  it  was  daylight,  we  recognised  the 
country;  it  had  been  quiet  and  un warlike  when 
last  we  had  passed  through  it.  The  rapid  transfor- 
mation enabled  us  to  realise  the  terror  of  the  fighting 
which  had  been  taking  place  to  the  south  —  the 
desperate  few,  digging  their  toes  in,  determined  not 
to  budge,  British,  American,  French,  hanging  on  in 
the  hope  of  reinforcements  which  could  not  come. 
The  landscape  lying  smiling  in  the  August  dawn 
lost  its  peacefulness;  one  saw  it  as  it  might  be- 
come —  a  hell  ensanguined  by  death,  through  which 
men  crawled  from  rifle-pit  to  rifle-pit  like  dogs  with 
their  spines  broken. 

Wherever  the  eye  rested,  fear  threatened  and 
muttered.  The  doubt  sprang  up  that  even  we 
might  be  defeated.  They  marched  us  to  and  fro 
under  sealed  orders.  They  made  us  die  and  suffer; 
but  they  told  us  nothing.  Who  were  they  —  these 
people  who  never  spoke  to  us  or  saw  us,  these 
people  whose  lives  were  too  valuable  to  endanger? 
They  lived  miles  behind  the  lines  in  chateaux.  They 
slept  in  sheeted  beds.  They  ate  as  much  as  they 
liked.  They  took  two  leaves  to  Blighty  to  our  one. 
Their  breasts  were  covered  with  decorations.  They 
never  knew  the  weariness  of  night-marches;  staff- 
cars  whisked  them  between  breakfast  and  lunch 


92  THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

across  distances  that  it  took  us  a  week  to  trudge. 
What  right  had  they  to  all  this  consideration? 
Were  they  really  so  wise  as  they  thought  they  were? 
If  they  bungled,  it  was  we  who  had  to  pay;  it  was 
our  bodies  that  would  be  mangled;  our  blood,  need- 
lessly expended,  that  would  wash  out  their  errors. 
And  when  in  spite  of  bad  staff-work  our  courage  had 
conquered,  it  would  be  we  who  would  get  whatever 
blame  was  coming  and  they  who  would  get  the 
credit. 

In  the  centre  section  a  horse  fell  down;  it  had 
gone  to  sleep  while  in  draught.  The  driver  must 
have  been  at  fault;  he,  too,  was  probably  nodding. 
From  down  the  column  Tubby  Grain's  voice  reached 
us,  angrily  strafing  in  unprintable  language.  The 
commotion  grew  fainter  as  the  other  teams  swung 
out  into  the  road  and  the  column  passed  on. 

At  a  bend  we  came  across  a  Chinese  Labour 
Battalion,  shuffling  up  to  work  on  the  trenches. 
Across  their  shoulders  they  balanced  poles,  with  the 
load  tied  on  either  end.  Their  clothing  was  nonde- 
script —  the  refuse  of  every  rag-shop  of  Europe  and 
the  Orient.  The  proudest  Chinaman  of  the  lot  swag- 
gered and  sweltered  in  the  remains  of  a  great-coat, 
which  had  belonged  to  an  officer  in  the  Prussian 
Guard.  They  went  by  us  clacking  their  tongues 
and  laughing,  happy  as  children  if  one  of  our  chaps 
smiled  back.  Beside  them,  rigid  and  regimental, 
marched  their  British  non-commissioned  officers, 
hard,  uncheerful  men  of  the  Indian  service,  who  car- 
ried rods  with  which  to  enforce  obedience. 


THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET          93 

A  cruel  war!  A  war  to  the  point  of  exhaustion 
when  the  white  man,  that  his  God  might  be  de- 
fended, had  to  rouse  Confucius  from  his  long  con- 
templation. These  men,  they  tell  us,  have  been 
recruited  from  districts  in  China  which  have  been 
stricken  with  famine.  They  have  exchanged  their 
rice-fields  and  pagodas  for  the  bombed  areas  and 
dug-outs  of  war  not  for  our  sakes,  but  that  their 
yellow  wives  and  children  may  not  starve.  You  can 
find  representatives  from  all  the  world  marching  up 
to  the  trenches  along  the  dusty  roads  of  France. 
We  Canadians  have  Japanese  in  our  British  Colum- 
bia battalions;  our  sharp-shooters  are  Red  Indians. 
The  New  Zealanders  have  Maoris;  the  South  Afri- 
cans Kaffirs;  the  West  Indians  Negroes;  the  cavalry 
Sikhs.  All  mankind  is  here  for  one  reason  or  an- 
other—  for  gain,  adventure,  principle,  patriotism; 
but  chiefly  that  they  may  prove  that  it  was  not  in 
vain  that  Christ  grew  up  in  Nazareth.  There  are 
aborigines  from  the  Pacific  Islands,  one  generation 
removed  from  cannibals;  Arab  horsemen  who  have 
worshipped  Allah  in  the  desert;  savages  from  the 
jungle;  wanderers  by  divers  trails,  who  had  lost 
their  way  in  the  maze  that  leads  out  to  civilization. 
They  have  all  been  sent  here  by  their  indignant 
gods  that  they  may  drag  down  the  more  brutal  god 
of  the  Germans. 

We  drowse;  we  crawl;  we  halt.  Again  we  move 
forward.  Our  eyes  are  aching  with  sleeplessness. 
We  pass  by  a  prison-camp,  surrounded  by  a  huge 
cage,  inside  of  which  Hun  prisoners  are  lined  up  to 


94          THE   TEST    OF   SCARLET 

get  their  breakfast.    Our  mouths  are  dry  and  we 
view  their  steaming  mess-tins  with  envy. 

We  march  on,  scarcely  interested  now  in  our  di- 
rection. Heels  are  blistered.  Where  we  are  going 
no  longer  matters,  if  they  would  only  give  us  time 
to  rest.  Of  a  sudden  there's  a  cheering  at  the  head 
of  the  column.  Men  pull  themselves  together. 
There's  been  no  order  passed  down  that  we  should 
march  to  attention,  but  every  gunner  is  marching 
close  behind  his  vehicle  and  the  drivers  are  sitting 
upright  in  their  saddles.  Far  up  the  road,  on  the 
banks  on  either  side,  are  standing  men  who  wear  a 
strange  uniform.  Their  slouch  hats  at  a  distance 
look  a  little  like  the  Australians',  but  their  tunics 
are  much  tighter.  Before  ever  we  come  abreast  of 
them,  the  word  has  been  whispered  back,  "They're 
here  —  the  Americans!"  There's  no  sleepiness 
about  us  now.  The  blistered  feet  are  forgotten; 
we're  marching  like  soldiers.  "They're  here  — 
the  Americans!"  It's  fifteen  months  since  we  heard 
that  they  were  coming.  We've  sung  their  promise, 

Over  there,  over  there, 

Send  the  word,  send  the  word  over  there, 

That  the  Yanks  are  coming 

We've  waited  and  we've  hoped  —  and  many  of 
the  boys  who  hoped  have  died.  We've  heard  that 
they  were  present  at  the  great  retreat  before  Cam- 
brai  in  1917.  We've  been  told  that  they  were 
coming  by  their  thousands,  but  as  yet  we  have  seen 
none  of  them.  Hun  prisoners  have  consistently 


THE    TEST   OF   SCARLET          95 

assured  us  that  there  were  no  Americans  in 
France  —  that  they  were  not  coming.  Now  we  are 
to  see  the  Yanks  with  our  own  eyes. 

"Battery,  eyes  front.  March  to  attention"  — 
the  order  passes  smartly  down  the  column. 

We  go  by  them,  looking  neither  to  left  nor  to 
right  —  so,  after  all,  we  can  scarcely  be  said  to 
have  seen  them.  They  are  coloured  troops  —  tre- 
mendous chaps  with  flashing  teeth  and  rolling  eyes. 
Our  first  Americans! 

We  no  longer  remember  the  wire-entanglements, 
the  gun-emplacements  and  the  new  trench-systems 
which  are  being  constructed  by  Chinamen  so  many 
miles  back  of  the  line.  Our  tails  are  up.  We 
shan't  retreat.  The  Yanks  are  no  longer  coming. 
They  have  come.  We  know  now  whither  we  are 
marching  —  to  the  end  of  the  war  and  to  conquest. 


THE  village  into  which  we  marched  this  morn- 
ing is  an  old  friend;  we  were  billeted  here 
earlier  in  the  summer  when  we  were  withdrawn  from 
the  line  for  training.  It  consists  of,  perhaps,  a  hun- 
dred grey  farmhouses  clustered  together  in  a  willow- 
swamp.  In  the  willow-groves  nightingales  were  still 
singing  when  we  entered. 

In  the  swamp  the  River  Scarpe  has  its  source.  At 
this  point  it  is  so  weak  and  narrow  that  a  boy  could 
leap  across  it;  the  village  geese  touch  bottom  as 
they  breast  its  ripples;  a  brigade  of  artillery  could 
drink  it  dry  if  all  the  horses  were  led  down  together. 
Here  it  is  peaceful,  but  to  the  south  of  Arras  it  be- 
comes sufficiently  broad  to  give  its  name  to  the 
valley  through  which  the  Hun  tried  to  drive  last 
spring,  when  the  waters  of  the  Scarpe  ran  scarlet. 

The  houses  of  the  village  stand  at  irregular  in- 
tervals, divided  from  the  road  by  a  strip  of  common 
upon  which  geese  graze.  One  reaches  the  common 
by  little  bridges  which  cross  the  Scarpe,  which 
wanders  singing,  paralleling  the  highway.  Nothing 
has  been  marred  by  shell-fire;  the  roar  of  the  guns 
is  so  distant  that  it  is  seldom  heard  by  day  —  only 
at  night  does  their  flash  flicker  momentarily,  like 
the  glow  of  a  lantern  carried  between  trees. 

96 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET          97 

It  is  a  very  quiet  spot,  well  within  the  threatened 
area,  where  war  is  ignored  and  life  has  not  altered 
its  ways.  Nature  has  conspired  with  the  inhabi- 
tants in  pretending  that  the  world  is  unchanged. 
The  gardens  are  fragrant  with  flowers;  there  are 
even  more  birds  than  formerly,  for  the  refugee 
songsters  from  No  Man's  Land  have  made  these 
thickets  their  place  of  escape.  The  only  terror  that 
comes  near  to  disturb  them  is  the  sullen  explosion 
of  bombs  dropped  at  night  from  Hun  planes,  as  is 
witnessed  by  raw  scars  in  the  greenness  of  the  sur- 
rounding meadows. 

When  we  entered,  the  white  mists  of  morning  still 
hung  above  the  common;  early  risen  cocks  with 
their  attendant  harems  were  our  only  welcomers. 
We  had  set  up  our  horse-lines  and  were  half  way 
through  the  grooming  before  the  villagers  discovered 
that  old  friends  were  again  among  them. 

All  day  we  have  been  wondering  why  we  have 
been  brought  here.  A  part  of  the  general  plan  of 
deception,  I  suppose  —  so  that  the  Hun  may  think, 
if  he  hears  of  our  whereabouts,  that  we've  simply 
marched  out  for  manoeuvres  as  before.  All  kinds 
of  details  confirm  our  belief  that  the  big  push  is 
about  to  start.  A  Divisional  Staff-car  called  in  at 
Brigade  this  noon;  the  Canadian  Maple  Leaf  and 
all  the  usual  Divisional  marks  had  been  painted  out. 
The  patches  and  shoulder-badges  of  the  car's  oc- 
cupants had  been  torn  off  —  nothing  was  left  that 
would  betray  the  fact  that  storm-troops  are  on 
the  march.  As  yet  we  have  received  no  orders  as  to 


98          THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

how  long  we  are  to  stay  here  —  it  would  be  normal 
to  give  us  a  few  days'  rest;  but  none  of  the  kit  has 
been  removed  from  the  vehicles  —  which  is  sig- 
nificant. We  could  hook  in  and  be  off  within  the 
hour. 

It  was  announced  this  morning  that  no  more 
letters  from  our  Corps  would  be  accepted  at  the 
Army  Post  Office.  This  is  the  most  certain  sign  we 
have  had  that  an  attack  is  going  to  be  pulled  off. 
Letters  home  are  a  frequent  source  of  leakage  of 
information.  When  men  know  that  they  are  writing 
what  may  prove  to  be  their  last  message  to  their 
mothers,  wives,  sweethearts,  it  is  almost  impos- 
sible for  them  to  keep  that  knowledge  to  themselves. 
Moreover,  we  each  one  have  codes,  pre-arranged 
with  our  correspondents,  by  means  of  which  we  can 
get  forbidden  news  past  the  censor  —  so  it's  wise, 
if  harsh,  to  insist  on  silence  between  ourselves  and 
the  outside  world. 

The  outside  world!  How  little  it  understands 
what  our  lives  are  like.  In  the  outside  world  there 
are  standards  of  freedom  and  politeness;  in  all 
personal  matters  a  man  has  the  power  of  choice. 
He  is  at  liberty  to  make  or  ruin  himself.  He  washes 
if  he  so  desires;  if  he  prefers  to  go  dirty,  he  does  not 
wash.  Within  reason,  as  far  as  is  compatible  with 
the  earning  of  his  daily  bread,  he  sleeps  as  long  as 
he  wants.  To  miss  one's  night's  rest  is  to  court  ill- 
health.  To  be  verminous  is  to  fall  into  the  category 
of  the  slum-dweller;  to  go  hungry  is  well-nigh  im- 
possible. To  lay  down  one's  life  for  somebody  else 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET          99 

is    exceptional    and    martyr-like.     To   become   a 
criminal  is  a  really  difficult  affair. 

With  us  everything  is  reversed.  We  grow 
moustaches  under  Army  orders;  we  crop  our  hair 
to  please  the  Colonel.  We  have  no  areas  of  privacy 
either  in  our  bodies  or  our  souls.  We  rise,  sleep, 
eat  and  wash  when  we  are  commanded.  We  are 
physically  examined,  physicked,  pumped  full  of 
anti-toxins  and  marched  off  to  church  parade  to 
worship  God  without  our  wishes  being  consulted. 
To  die  for  someone  else  is  not  martyr-like,  but  our 
job.  To  go  foodless,  sleepless,  shelterless  and  wet 
is  not  a  matter  for  self-pity,  but  our  accepted  lot. 
We  cannot  give  notice  to  our  employers;  we  have 
no  unions  —  no  means  of  protest.  To  be  always 
cheerful  and  smiling,  the  more  cheerful  and  smiling 
in  proportion  to  the  hardship,  is  a  duty  for  the  per- 
formance of  which  we  must  expect  no  thanks.  Our 
existence  as  individuals  is  ignored  until  we  have 
fallen  short,  then,  all  of  a  sudden,  we  become  im- 
portant. What  in  civilian  life  would  be  errors  in 
taste  or  mistakes  in  temper  with  us  are  offences  and 
crimes.  For  a  man  in  the  ranks  to  come  upon 
parade  unshaven,  with  his  buttons  unshone  or  a  few 
minutes  late  is  an  office  offence.  To  be  found 
kicking  a  horse  is  a  crime,  demanding  a  court- 
martial.  To  strike  a  superior,  to  be  asleep  on 
sentry-go,  or  to  be  absent  from  the  unit  when  it  is 
moving  into  action  means  death. 

Military  punishments  are  largely  physical  and 
therefore  degrading.    They  compel  men  to  do  better 


ioo        THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

through  fear  of  further  punishment;  they  neither 
educate  into  a  finer  appreciation  of  righteousness, 
nor  do  they  achieve  any  economic  purpose.  They 
consist  in  being  strapped  to  a  gun-wheel  for  so  many 
hours  a  day  or  in  being  marched  with  heavy  packs 
on  the  back  when  other  men  are  resting.  In  the 
allotting  of  punishment  the  age,  former  social  status 
or  mental  qualities  of  the  offender  are  rarely  taken 
into  account.  There  are  no  excuses,  no  explan- 
ations. Take  the  gravest  crime  of  all  —  cowardice. 
In  peace  times  it  was  generally  allowed  that  not 
every  man  was  brave.  Before  anyone  who  had 
been  unheroic  was  judged,  his  history  and  environ- 
ment were  taken  into  consideration.  But  in  the 
Army  if  a  man  fails  in  courage  he  is  shot.  Had 
St.  Peter  been  a  soldier  of  the  Allies,  after  denying 
Christ  thrice  he  would  never  have  been  given  the 
Keys  of  Heaven.  He  would  have  been  executed  at 
the  feet  of  the  hanging  Judas.  The  Army  asks 
every  man  to  be  infallible;  it  can  afford  to  show  no 
mercy  and  gives  no  second  chance.  We  are  judged 
and  graded  by  our  military  virtues.  What  we 
knew,  were  or  possessed,  and  what  has  been  our  in- 
dividual sacrifice  of  happiness  count  for  nought. 
We  are  fighting-men,  and  therefore  not  required  to 
think  —  only  to  obey  blindly. 

I  suppose  I  still  retain  my  civilian  mind,  for  I 
cannot  treat  men  as  automatons;  I  have  to  interpret 
them  with  imagination.  If  one  were  to  see  only 
their  externals,  they  would  appear  to  be  rough 
chaps,  coarse  in  speech  and  habits,  with  a  scowling 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET         101 

attitude  towards  authority  which  only  an  iron 
discipline  can  keep  subordinate.  But  when  you 
view  them  with  imagination,  you  see  their  en- 
thusiasm for  an  ideal,  which  made  them  willing  to 
give  up  their  freedom  and  jeopardise  their  lives. 
For  no  one  hi  our  brigade  needed  to  be  in  France; 
they  all  came  as  volunteers.  You  also  see  how  from 
the  very  first  the  Army  has  failed  to  appreciate  or 
make  use  of  that  enthusiasm;  it  prefers  to  treat 
men  as  people  who,  having  signed  away  their  bodies 
and  lives,  have  to  obey  because  they  cannot  escape. 
Yet  despite  the  Army,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  men 
survives.  It  creeps  out  in  their  letters  to  their 
mothers  and  wives,  to  whom  they  still  are  heroes. 
It  even  creeps  out  in  their  conversation,  when  one's 
up  front  with  them  and  keeping  watch  through  the 
dreary  hours  of  the  night.  They  are  coarse  and 
rough  it  is  true,  for  they  are  leading  a  coarse  and  a 
rough  existence.  Their  only  bedding  is  their 
blanket;  they  can  never  remove  their  clothes  at 
night.  Their  chances  for  bathing  come  very  rarely. 
They  can  carry  only  one  change  of  underclothing 
as  their  rolls  have  to  be  of  an  exact  and  limited  size. 
While  in  the  line  their  quarters  consist  of  holes 
burrowed  under-ground;  when  out  at  rest  they 
consist  of  broken  down  stables  and  barns,  into 
which  they  are  packed  so  closely  that  they  can 
scarcely  turn  over  without  disturbing  the  men  on 
either  side.  All  the  niceties  and  decencies  of 
civilised  life  are  denied  them;  war  is  a  nasty  affair 
and  its  nastiness  cannot  be  avoided.  No  outcast  of 


102         THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

the  city  streets,  drowsing  under  bridges  and  being 
harried  by  the  police,  leads  a  more  comfortless  ex- 
istence. At  the  end  of  the  journey,  as  a  reward  for 
their  sufferings,  are  probable  mutilation  and 
death.  Is  it  to  be  wondered  that  some  of  them  get 
drunk  to  escape  their  misery  whenever  the  chance 
presents  itself,  and  that  when  drunk,  they  become 
bold  to  challenge  the  discipline  which  in  action  is 
their  greatest  protection?  The  crimes  which  they 
commit  are  crimes  only  in  the  Army  —  few  of  them 
would  be  even  offences  anywhere  else.  A  man 
suffers  the  death  penalty  on  active  service  for  an 
error  which  in  a  civil  court  would  cost  him  no  more 
than  a  warning  and  a  fine. 

I  can  never  get  out  of  my  mind  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  individual  magnanimity  of  each  Tommy's 
sacrifice  and  the  unimaginative  callousness  with 
which  it  is  accepted.  The  self-denial  of  the  men  in 
the  ranks  is  always  far  in  excess  of  the  self-denial 
of  their  officers.  The  higher  an  officer  climbs  in 
rank,  the  greater  is  his  authority  and  the  less  his 
self-denial,  yet  the  stronger  grows  his  contempt  for 
those  beneath  him.  War  conducted  from  a  chateau 
and  a  Rolls  Royce  car  is  a  comparatively  pleasant 
affair;  there  is  no  temptation  to  get  drunk  or  be- 
come a  deserter.  But  war  conducted  from  a  front- 
line trench,  upon  bully  beef,  shell-hole  water  and 
hard  tack,  in  a  shirt  that  has  been  lousy  for  a 
month,  with  a  body  which  is  unwashed,  unwarmed 
and  famished  for  want  of  sleep  —  that  kind  of  war 
is  hell.  This  is  the  kind  of  war  that  the  man  in  the 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

ranks  fights  with  a  grin  upon  his  lips  and  a  fierce 
determination  to  meet  every  calamity  with  a  jest. 
The  man  in  the  ranks  is  the  best  man  on  the  Front 
when  he's  at  his  best;  there's  no  brass  hat  or  red 
tab  safe  behind  the  lines  who's  worthy  to  touch  the 
stretcher  which  carries  him  to  his  last,  long  rest. 
The  red  tab  carries  out  laws  for  the  private's  pun- 
ishment; he  strafes  him  on  review  and  goes  out  of 
his  way  to  find  faults;  he  makes  him  take  to  the 
ditch  when  his  staff-car  splashes  by;  he  plans  an 
offensive  and  sends  him  over  the  top  to  be  smashed 
by  shell-fire;  if  the  offensive  succeeds,  he  is  awarded 
decorations  for  an  ordeal  through  which  he  has  not 
passed;  the  fighting  Tommy  wins  the  decorations, 
but  the  red  tab  wears  them;  and  if  at  last  the  fight- 
ing Tommy's  nerve  forsakes  him,  it  is  the  red  tab 
who  turns  his  thumbs  down,  confirming  the  sentence 
that  he  shall  face  the  firing-squad.  Yet  the  private 
is  the  better  man  every  hour  of  the  day  and  in  his 
heart  the  red  tab  knows  it  —  knows  it  and  resents 
it.  If  the  war  is  won,  it  will  be  won  by  the  sacrifice 
of  simple  men,  who  never  wore  a  ribbon  or  any 
insignia  of  rank,  but  were  content  to  die  humbly 
and  unnoticed.  I  love  them,  these  gunners  and 
drivers  of  mine  —  and  I  marvel  at  their  patience. 
We  are  marching  to  a  life  and  death  conflict  in 
which  we  take  it  for  granted  that  every  man  in  our 
command  will  live  up  to  the  most  heroic  standards, 
yet  to-day  at  noon  we  held  office.  The  prisoners 
were  marched  in  under  escort,  their  heads  bare  and 
their  arms  held  flatly  to  their  sides.  Most  of  the 


104        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

charges  against  them  were  paltry.  This  man  had 
been  caught  with  his  candle  burning  after  lights  out 
had  sounded;  the  next  had  been  late  upon  early 
morning  parade;  the  next  had  lost  his  box-respir- 
ator —  he  said  it  had  been  stolen ;  the  next  had  been 
found  riding  on  an  ammunition-wagon  after  the 
order  had  been  passed  down  the  column  for  the 
gunners  to  dismount.  Not  one  of  the  offences 
alleged  amounted  to  more  than  a  misdemeanour, 
yet  these  men  who  are  the  picked  storm-troops  of 
the  British  Armies  and  whom  we  expect  to  face  the 
shambles  without  flinching  within  the  next  few 
days,  upholding  the  best  traditions  of  the  Empire, 
were  marched  hatless  under  an  armed  guard 
through  the  village  street,  with  all  the  French  girls 
staring  at  them.  Some  of  them  escaped  punish- 
ment—  some  were  awarded  extra  fatigues,  pack- 
drill,  additional  pickets;  many  of  them  will  be  dead 
before  their  sentences  have  been  served.  We  ask 
too  much  when  we  treat  them  as  feudal  slaves  and 
expect  them  to  act  like  crusaders. 

Four  years  ago  they  were  freemen  —  professional 
men,  prairie-farmers,  ranchers,  lumber-jacks,  sur- 
veyors. They  wilfuly  forewent  their  liberty  that 
an  ideal  might  conquer.  It  is  the  fact  that  they 
were  freemen  in  the  truest  sense  that  makes  them 
fight  so  bravely.  They  were  men  accustomed  to 
take  risks,  to  stand  upon  two  legs  and  confront 
Nature  unafraid.  We  may  treat  them  as  school- 
boys, but  it  is  their  triumphant  manhood  that  gives 
them  their  dash  and  splendid  self-reliance  up  front. 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        105 

In  other  words,  we  try  to  crush  the  very  spirit  by 
our  discipline  which  makes  us  victorious  in  battle. 
It  seems  strange  that,  knowing  this  to  be  the  case, 
we  should  persist  in  governing  them  as  people 
possessed  of  no  intelligence. 

Discipline  is  necessary  —  it  is  our  stoutest  safe- 
guard in  action;  but  it  works  unfairness  in  indi- 
vidual cases.  Take  for  example  the  man  unfortu- 
nately named  Trottrot,  who  is  one  of  the  drivers  in 
my  section.  Trottrot  "  got  in  bad  "  at  the  very 
start  of  the  war;  and  he  was  in  at  the  start  —  one 
of  the  first  of  the  Canadian  artillery-men  to  arrive 
in  France.  I  think  the  trouble  began  with  his 
name;  some  wag  saw  in  it  a  chance  for  jocularity. 
Wherever  he  went  men  shouted  after  him  "  Where 
the  hell  did  Trottrot  trot?"  I  suppose  his  life  was 
made  so  miserable  that  he  lost  his  self-respect  and 
did  not  care  what  happened.  At  any  rate  his  crime- 
sheet  became  famous  throughout  the  Canadian 
Corps.  A  man's  crime-sheet  is  the  record  of  his 
punishments  from  the  first  day  he  becomes  a  part 
of  the  Army;  it  accompanies  him  from  unit  to  unit 
and  is  his  reference.  His  was  as  long  and  full  of 
incident  as  a  De  Morgan  novel.  He  had  bucked 
authority  in  every  way  and  suffered  about  every 
penalty  short  of  being  shot.  To  read  it  was  a  ro- 
mance and  an  education.  He  had  been  absent  with- 
out leave,  drunk,  insubordinate,  late  upon  parade, 
had  struck  an  officer,  kicked  more  than  one  N.  C.  O. 
in  the  face  and  had  spent  six  months  of  his  service 
in  a  penal-settlement. 


io6        THE    TEST   OF   SCARLET 

When  he  was  attached  to  our  battery  a  groan 
went  up.  No  one  wants  to  have  a  "  bad  actor  "  in 
a  unit  —  his  example  is  likely  to  become  contagious. 
We  tried  to  get  out  of  taking  him  and,  when  that 
failed,  had  him  brought  before  us.  He  was  a  slim, 
inoffensive  looking  youth,  with  pale  eyes  and  a 
narrow,  clever  face.  The  Major  was  seated  at  a 
table,  fingering  his  voluminous  crime-sheet,  while 
we  junior  officers  formed  a  half-circle  behind  him. 

When  Trottrot  had  been  marched  in  by  the 
Sergeant-Major  and  ordered  to  "Right-Turn,"  and 
was  standing  stiffly  at  attention,  the  Major  looked 
up. 

"Driver  Trottrot,"  he  said,  "you've  got  the  name 
for  being  the  worst  man  in  the  Canadian  Corps.  If 
you  go  much  further,  you'll  end  by  being  shot.  Of 
course  that's  entirely  your  own  affair,  but  I'd  like 
to  help  you  to  avoid  it.  I'm  going  to  give  you  a 
new  chance.  I'm  going  to  forget  all  about  this  Nick 
Carter  novel  you've  been  compiling."  He  tapped 
the  man's  crime-sheet  and  threw  it  aside.  "I'm 
going  to  treat  you  as  though  you  hadn't  a  stain  on 
your  record  —  as  though  you  were  a  white  man.  As 
long  as  you  play  white  by  me,  I'll  treat  you  like  a 
white  man.  The  moment  you  act  yellow,  God  help 
you.  You're  dismissed  —  that's  all  I  have  to  say." 

Driver  Trottrot  was  handed  over  to  me  and  I  had 
a  private  talk  with  him.  He  would  give  no 
assurances  that  he  was  going  to  reform;  he  dis- 
trusted me  the  way  a  dog  does  a  man  who  holds  a 
whip  behind  his  back.  Little  by  little,  however,  as 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         107 

days  went  by  he  began  to  respond  to  kindness. 
Within  a  month  he  was  the  smartest  man  upon 
parade,  had  the  cleanest  set  of  harness  and  the  Best 
groomed  horses.  He  was  promoted  to  a  centre- 
team,  then  to  a  wheel-team  and  was  finally  made 
lead-driver  of  the  first-line  wagon.  Beyond  this  we 
have  not  dared  to  promote  him  because  the  men 
declare  that  he  is  not  to  be  trusted  under  shell-fire. 
There  are  two  ammunition- wagons  to  each  gun: 
the  firing-battery  wagon,  which  follows  the  gun 
into  action,  and  the  first-line  which  brings  up  the 
ammunition.  The  picked  drivers  of  any  sub-section 
are  on  the  gun-teams,  as  their  work  is  likely  to 
prove  the  most  dangerous;  the  next  best  are  on  the 
teams  of  the  firing-battery;  the  next  on  those  of  the 
first  line;  the  remainder  are  kept  as  spare  drivers. 
The  best  driver  of  any  team  rides  in  lead.  Trottrot 
ought  to  be  driving  lead  of  the  gun  by  virtue  of  his 
work.  Whenever  an  inspecting  officer  is  going  the 
round  of  our  horse-lines,  he  always  stops  to  praise 
the  glossy  coats  of  Trottrot's  team  and  to  comment 
on  them  as  an  example  of  what  can  be  done  by 
horsemanship.  But  we're  afraid  to  give  him  his 
deserts  on  account  of  the  men's  belief  that  he  lacks 
"guts."  Trottrot  has  lived  down  his  reputation  for 
being  a  "bad  actor,"  but  his  reputation  for  being 
"yellow"  clings.  We  treat  him  like  a  "white  man." 
and  he  acts  as  though  he  were  one.  Perhaps  the 
carnage  towards  which  we  are  marching  may  give 
him  his  chance  to  wipe  the  slate  clean  of  his  old 
record.  I  hope  so  and  believe  that  that's  what  he's 


io8         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

hoping.  There's  a  curious  look  of  determination  in 
his  eyes,  as  though  he  waited  breathless  for  the  com- 
mencement of  the  danger.  It's  as  though  he  were 
trying  to  tell  me:  "I  won't  let  you  down,  sir,  I'll 
either  die  in  this  show  or  come  out  of  it  lead-driver 
of  the  gun."  I  lay  my  money  on  Trottrot;  he's  a 
white  man  to  his  marrow,  if  I  know  one. 


VI 

AFTER  writing  my  prophecy  concerning  Driver 
Trottrot,  I  lay  down  to  snatch  a  few  hours 
sleep.  My  batman  had  spread  my  sleeping-sack  on 
the  tiled  floor  of  the  cottage  bedroom  in  which  I 
and  three  of  my  brother  officers  were  billeted.  The 
other  three  had  been  breathing  heavily  for  some 
hours,  wearied  by  the  night's  march.  They  had  not 
removed  more  than  their  boots  and  tunics  for  fear 
we  should  receive  hurried  orders  to  take  to  the 
road  again.  They  lay  curled  up  like  dogs,  with 
their  knees  drawn  to  their  chins,  for  all  the  world 
like  aborigines  who  had  scooped  a  hole  in  the 
leaves  of  a  forest.  One  learns  to  sleep  that  way  on 
active  service  and  to  lose  no  time  in  tumbling  off. 
My  last  memory  was  of  wide-open  lattice-windows, 
the  heavy  listlessness  of  garden-flowers  and  the 
perfumed  stillness  of  trees  drowsing  in  the  sultry 
August  sun. 

I  was  wakened  by  someone  shaking  my  arm,  and 
opened  my  eyes  to  find  Driver  Trottrot  bending 
over  me.  His  expression  was  a  little  alarmed  at 
the  liberty  he  was  taking.  "  I  wasn't  told  to  come 
to  you,  sir,"  he  explained  quickly;  "but  I  thought 
you  ought  to  know.  The  boys  were  paid  after 
morning  stables,  before  they'd  had  anything  to  eat. 

109 


no        THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

A  lot  of  these  Frenchies  started  selling  them  vin 
blink.  What  with  having  had  no  sleep  and  then 
getting  that  stuff  on  their  empty  stomachs,  they're 
getting  fighting  drunk.  It's  none  of  my  business, 
but  I  thought  you -ought  to  stop  it." 

"  Good  for  you,  Trottrot,"  I  said.  "  Chuck  me 
over  my  boots;  I'll  be  with  you  in  half  a  second." 

For  a  moment  I  had  a  mind  to  rouse  the  othei 
officers,  but  they  looked  so  fagged  that  I  determined 
to  let  them  sleep  on.  I  finished  buttoning  my  tunic 
and  buckling  my  Sam  Browne  as  I  hurried  across 
the  common.  We  passed  over  the  little  bridge,  con- 
sisting of  a  single  plank,  and  struck  the  road  which 
led  towards  the  horse-lines  and  the  centre  of  the 
village.  As  we  walked  I  questioned  Trottrot,  try- 
ing to  tap  the  experience  he  possessed  as  the  ex- 
professional  "bad  man"  of  the  Canadian  Corps. 
"Why  do  the  chaps  do  things  like  this?  Getting 
drunk  isn't  enjoyable  and  the  after  effects  must  be 
rotten." 

"  Chaps  get  drunk  for  various  reasons,"  he  an- 
swered. "They  do  it  to  forget;  it  isn't  all  honey 
being  a  gunner  or  a  driver,  and  kicked  around  by 
everybody.  They  do  it  because  some  N.  C.  O.  or 
officer  has  got  a  grouch  against  them,  and  picks  on 
them  so  that  they  can't  do  anything  right.  They 
do  it  because  they  get  tired  of  going  straight;  pol- 
ishing harness  and  grooming  horses  three  times  a 
day  is  monotonous.  They  do  it  because  there's 
nothing  else  to  do,  and  they  do  it  because  they're 
lonely.  Some  does  it  because  they  likes  it  —  it 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        in 

makes  them  feel  that  they  own  the  world  for  a  little 
while  and  are  as  good  as  anybody.  And  then  there's 
those  that  does  it  because  they're  frightened." 

"  How  do  you  mean,  frightened?" 

"  Well,  sir,  the  war's  been  going  on  for  four 
years  and  it  looks  as  though  it  might  go  on  for 
twenty.  A  good  many  of  us  chaps  have  been 
wounded  several  times;  we've  not  been  killed  yet, 
but  we  feel  that  our  luck  can't  last.  Each  new 
attack  that  we  come  through  lessens  our  chances. 
We  know  that  sooner  or  later  we're  going  to  get  it  — 
and  then  it's  pushing  daisies  for  us,  with  nobody 
caring  much.  This  new  attack  is  worse  than  the 
others;  we're  told  nothing  and  can  only  imagine. 
It  isn't  good  to  imagine.  It's  the  suspense  and  the 
guessing  that  wears  one.  It's  different  for  you,  sir, 
than  it  is  for  us  —  you  have  to  set  an  example.  It's 
much  harder  just  to  follow.  One  has  an  awful  lot 
of  time  for  thinking  on  a  long  night  march  —  he 
sees  himself  all  messed  up.  It's  to  stop  thinking 
that  most  chaps  get  drunk." 

We  were  in  the  village  by  now,  approaching  the 
horse-lines.  From  the  pretty  cottages,  which  had 
looked  so  innocent  in  the  early  morning,  came 
sounds  of  coarse  laughter  and  discordant  singing. 
Groups  of  men,  swaying  on  their  feet  and  arguing 
with  uncouth,  threatening  gestures,  tried  to  stand 
absurdly  to  attention  and  salute  as  we  passed.  "Vin 
blink,"  as  the  Tommies  call  the  poisonous  con- 
coction which  is  sold  them  as  "white  wine,"  was 
doing  its  worst.  No  poilu  would  pour  it  down  his 


ii2         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

gullet.  Whatever  it  is  made  of,  it  acts  like  acid 
and  works  like  poison  in  the  blood;  especially  is 
this  the  case  with  men  who  have  been  free  from 
alcohol  up  front  and  are  wearied  in  mind  and  body. 
A  good  deal  of  the  traffic  is  carried  on  during  pro- 
hibited hours  and  by  unlicensed  persons,  at  exor- 
bitant rates  and  with  a  criminal  disregard  for  con- 
sequences. Yet  if  property  is  damaged  or  a  civilian 
assaulted  the  last  centime  of  indemnity  is  exacted, 
the  claims  being  pressed  against  defendants  who  are 
again  in  the  line,  making  life  safe  for  the  relentless 
plaintiffs.  Temptation  is  made  easy  for  the 
Tommy;  under  the  influence  of  "vin  blink"  he 
causes  most  of  his  trouble.  A  girl  is  usually  the 
bait;  she  stands  woodenly  smiling  in  the  doorway 
of  her  particular  estaminet  that  he  may  see  her  as 
his  unit  enters  a  village.  During  all  the  four  years 
of  fighting  this  peculiarly  cowardly  form  of  profi- 
teering has  been  going  on.  Nothing  effectual  has 
been  done  to  stop  it. 

This  being  a  village  in  which  we  had  formerly 
been  billeted,  our  men  had  required  no  one  to  give 
them  pointers.  At  the  morning  stables  they  had 
been  warned  to  keep  sober  and  get  all  the  sleep  that 
was  possible;  but  the  moment  they  were  dismissed, 
they  had  scattered  to  the  various  cottages  where 
drink  was  obtainable.  By  this  time  many  of  them 
were  mellow  and  some  were  completely  intoxicated. 
On  arriving  at  the  horse-lines  we  found  them  lying 
beneath  the  guns  and  wagons  and  on  the  bales  of 
hay,  either  dead  to  the  world  or  staring  dreamily  at 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         113 

nothing.  "One  sees  himself  all  messed  up.  It's  to 
stop  thinking  that  most  chaps  get  drunk!" 

Poor  laddies!  They  were  little  more  than  boys. 
Life  hadn't  been  over-gay  for  them  since  war 
started;  by  all  accounts  it  would  be  even  less  gay 
in  the  coming  months.  Their  faces  told  the  story; 
boys  of  twenty  looked  forty.  Their  cheeks  were 
hollow  and  lined;  in  their  eyes  was  a  strained  ex- 
pression of  haggard  expectancy.  They  were  brave; 
they  always  would  be  brave.  Their  pride  of  race 
kept  them  up.  Directly  the  battle  had  really  started 
they  would  become  alert  and  eager  as  runners.  But 
for  the  moment  they  had  broken  training;  the  long 
tension  had  proved  too  much.  They  had  seized 
their  opportunity  for  forgetfulness.  Throughout 
the  fields  and  beneath  the  trees,  wherever  there  was 
a  bit  of  shade  they  lay  fallen  and  crumpled,  their 
tunics  flung  aside  and  their  shirts  torn  open  to  the 
chest.  They  would  look  very  much  like  this  one 
day  when  the  tornado  of  bullets  and  shell-fire  had 
swept  over  them.  The  thought  made  me  sick;  the 
picture  was  too  horribly  similar  and  realistic.  It 
was  only  when  I  looked  at  the  horses,  strung  out  in 
three  long  lines,  peacefully  swishing  their  tails  and 
nosing  round  for  any  wisps  of  hay  that  were  re- 
maining, that  I  felt  assured  that  the  catastrophe 
which  was  always  coming  nearer,  had  not  yet 
befallen. 

The  important  task  before  us  was  to  get  them 
collected  up  and  safely  into  billets,  where  they 
could  sleep  off  the  effects  of  their  debauch.  Any 


ii4        THE    TEST   OF   SCARLET 

moment  we  might  get  orders  to  hook  in  and  continue 
the  march.  It  was  unlikely  that  we  would  be  given 
such  orders  until  the  cool  of  the  evening;  but  should 
some  emergency  make  the  step  necessary,  we  would 
find  ourselves  in  a  pretty  mess.  Suzette  had  already 
realised  the  seriousness  of  the  situation;  out  in  the 
meadows,  where  men  had  thrown  themselves  down 
in  the  glaring  sun,  I  could  see  her  rousing  them  and 
helping  them  to  get  under  cover.  The  great  danger 
from  the  individual  man's  point  of  view,  was  that  in 
his  befuddled  state  he  might  wander  away  and  be 
missing  when  we  took  up  our  march  again.  What 
would  follow  would  depend  on  each  particular 
Tommy.  If  he  had  sense,  when  he  found  that  he 
had  lost  his  unit,  he  would  report  to  the  first  British 
officer  he  encountered  and  get  a  written  statement 
from  the  officer  to  that  effect.  Every  day  that  he 
was  absent,  until  he  re-found  us,  he  would  get  a 
signed  reference  as  to  his  movements.  If,  however, 
on  coming  out  of  his  stupor  he  got  frightened,  he 
might  hide  himself;  in  which  case,  though  he 
originally  had  no  intention  to  desert,  his  action 
would  be  interpreted  as  desertion.  Many  a  man 
has  been  court-martialed  and  condemned,  when 
his  only  fault  was  stupidity  and  ignorance  of  mili- 
tary procedure. 

You  can't  "crime"  two-thirds  of  a  battery;  the 
only  thing  to  be  done  was  to  take  steps  to  avoid  the 
consequences.  I  sent  the  guard  to  summon  all 
the  N.C.O.'s  and  officers  to  the  horse-lines.  We 
then  brought  together  all  the  men  who  were 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        u5 

still  fit  for  duty  and,  having  increased  the 
guard,  set  to  work  to  carry  or  lead  all  those  who 
were  incapable  back  to  their  quarters.  When  we 
had  called  the  roll  and  knew  that  no  one  was  absent, 
we  made  a  search  for  any  drink  that  might  be  con- 
cealed about  the  men's  persons  and  then  proceeded 
to  sober  up  the  worst  cases  by  dashing  buckets  of 
water  over  them.  When  this  had  been  done,  we 
placed  an  armed  guard  at  the  entrance  to  every 
billet,  with  orders  to  permit  no  one  to  go  out  or  to 
enter.  We  then  left  them  to  sleep  it  off. 

At  sun-down  a  dispatch-rider  dashed  up  to 
Brigade  Headquarters.  The  sound  of  his  motor- 
bike chugging  through  the  village  had  been  sufficient 
warning  to  all  the  officers'  messes;  there  were  rep- 
resentatives from  all  the  batteries  waiting  in  the 
courtyard  when  the  adjutant  came  out  to  give  us 
the  Colonel's  orders.  "  The  orders  are  to  hook  in 
at  once  and  be  ready  to  move  off  by  9  P.  M." 

"  In  what  direction?"  we  asked. 

"  I  don't  know,"  he  said,  "  and  that's  no  lie.  The 
Colonel  doesn't  know,  but  he's  off  to  see  the  General. 
In  any  case  we  shan't  be  told  until  the  last  minute." 

Then  commenced  the  appalling  job  of  getting  a 
half-sober  battery  harnessed  up,  hooked  in  and 
looking  sufficiently  respectable  that  its  true  con- 
dition might  not  be  apparent.  This  was  a  case  when 
the  iron  discipline  of  the  Army  showed  at  its  best. 
A  well-disciplined  unit  is  never  so  drunk  that  it 
can't  beat  a  teetotal  one  in  which  the  discipline  is 
lax.  It  was  extraordinary  how  under  the  spur  of 


n6        THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

necessity  the  men  pulled  themselves  together;  they 
had  learnt  how  to  make  their  insubordinate  bodies 
obey  their  wills  up  front,  flogging  them  forward  to 
victory  through  mud  and  cold  and  weariness.  With 
leaden  eyes  and  shaking  hands,  they  went  through 
all  the  familiar  motions,  so  that  the  battery  was 
mounted  and  sitting  to  attention  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  before  the  time  appointed  struck.  In  the  in- 
spection that  followed,  hardly  a  buckle  was  out  of 
place  or  a  piece  of  equipment  ill-adjusted. 

But  there  were  some  men  who  were  kept  hidden 
till  the  last  moment  —  these  were  the  dead  drunk. 
It  was  our  purpose  to  bring  them  out  only  at  the 
last  moment  when,  trusting  to  the  gathering  dark- 
ness to  conceal  their  condition,  we  planned  to  bind 
them  to  the  seats  of  the  guns  with  drag-ropes.  It 
takes  all  kinds  to  make  an  army;  some  who  are  the 
worst  actors  out  at  rest,  are  the  finest  heroes  in 
action. 

"  There's  those  that  does  it  because  they're 
frightened."  That  thought  kept  running  through 
my  head  as  I  searched  the  stern  and  haggard  faces 
of  these  boys  who  had  been  shipped  from  the  ends 
of  the  earth  to  die  together.  They  didn't  look  the 
kind  to  be  easily  frightened.  I  knew  they  weren't 
the  kind,  for  I'd  seen  them  fighting  forward  through 
the  mud-bath  of  the  Somme  and  driving  their  guns 
into  action  through  the  death-draps  of  Farbus.  But 
no  one  can  guess  rightly  the  agony  which  lies  hidden 
behind  the  impassive  masque  of  the  external. 

The  sunset,   lying  low  on   the  horizon,   cut  a 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         117 

brilliant  line  behind  the  shoulders  of  the  drivers, 
causing  their  metal-work  to  glitter  and  emphasising 
the  erectness  of  their  soldierly  bearing  in  the  saddle. 
They  looked  a  very  different  lot  from  the  disor- 
organized  mob  which  eight  hours  earlier  had  lain 
scattered  throughout  the  ditches  of  the  countryside. 

We  were  waiting  for  the  Major  to  arrive.  He  had 
gone  to  Brigade  Headquarters  with  the  other 
battery-commanders  to  receive  final  instructions 
from  the  Colonel.  As  we  waited  the  pool  of  dark- 
ness, which  had  at  first  washed  shallowly  about  the 
gun-wheels  and  feet  of  horses,  began  to  creep  higher, 
till  only  the  heads  of  the  men  and  horses  remained 
distinct  against  the  frieze  of  the  vanishing  sunset  — 
all  else  was  vague  and  lost.  A  nightingale  in  a 
neighboring  thicket  began  to  pour  out  its  solitary 
song;  far  away  in  the  intervals  of  silence  a  second 
bird  answered.  There  was  a  heavy  and  yearning 
melancholy  in  what  they  said  which  played  havoc 
with  the  accustomed  stoicism  of  our  hearts. 

Suddenly  along  the  road  came  the  sound  of  a 
rider  approaching  at  a  rapid  trot.  The  sharp  tap- 
ping of  the  horse's  hoofs  changed  to  a  dull  thudding 
as  he  turned  into  the  field.  Then  the  thudding 
stopped.  The  Major's  voice  rang  out  in  an  abrupt 
word  of  command,  "  Fall  out  the  officers."  From 
the  various  sections  the  officers  galloped  out  and 
formed  up  before  him  in  a  half-circle. 

"  Take  out  your  note-books  and  write  down  these 
names,"  he  said;  "they're  the  villages  through 
which  we  shall  pass  on  to-night's  march.  You 


n8        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

will  not  tell  any  of  the  men  the  names  of  the 
villages  and  you'll  burn  your  list  in  the  morning. 
This  information  is  only  given  to  you  in  case 
some  of  the  vehicles  should  break  down,  so 
that  you  may  be  able  to  bring  them  on  to  rejoin 
the  main  party.  And  remember,  absolute  secrecy 
is  necessary.  Here  are  the  names.  ...  Be  care- 
ful with  your  flashlights  as  you  write  them  down; 
keep  them  shaded.  We  don't  want  any  Hun  planes 
to  get  wind  of  us."  When  we  had  replaced  our  note- 
books he  nodded  shortly,  "  That's  all.  In  about 
five  minutes  we  move  off." 

As  I  rejoined  my  section  the  Number  One  of  A. 
Sub  rode  up  and  saluted.  "  One  of  my  men's 
missing,  sir.  He's  Gunner  Standish  —  a  steady, 
quiet  sort  of  lad:  the  chap  as  kept  the  gun  in  action 
single-handed,  when  all  the  rest  of  the  crew  was 
knocked  out  in  the  Willerval  racket." 

I  remembered  Standish  well;  I  had  had  him  in 
mind  for  the  next  promotion.  He  had  won  the  Mil- 
itary Medal  for  his  gallantry  at  Willerval,  for  fight- 
ing his  gun  alone,  when  the  pit  had  become  a 
shambles  and  all  his  comrades  were  lying  about  him, 
either  wounded  or  dead.  A  fine  piece  of  work,  and 
especially  fine  for  a  chap  of  his  nature,  for  he  was 
nervous  and  high-strung,  and  only  seventeen,  though 
in  his  keenness  to  enlist  he  had  stated  his  military 
age  as  twenty. 

I  turned  to  the  Number  One  brusquely.  "  But 
you  reported  your  subsection  as  complete  a  good 
half  hour  ago?" 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        n9 

"  And  it  was  complete  then,  sir.  I  spoke  with 
the  man  myself.  He  slipped  off  while  we  was  wait- 
ing for  the  Major;  he  didn't  ask  no  permission  and 
didn't  say  a  word  to  any  one." 

"Perhaps  he'd  remembered  that  he'd  left  behind 
some  of  his  kit.  You'd  better  send  someone  after 
him  at  the  double.  Probably  you'll  find  him  in  his 
billets." 

"  I've  done  that,  sir,  and  he  wasn't  there." 

"Had  he  been  drinking?" 

The  Sergeant  shook  his  head.  "  It  doesn't  sound 
like  Standish.  He  came  of  good  people  and  was  a 
trustworthy,  well-conducted  chap.  He's  never  been 
up  for  office  and  was  proud  of  it." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "I'll  have  to  report  to  the 
Major,  and  then  you  and  I  will  go  and  search  for 
him.  I'll  wager  we'll  find  him  in  his  billets." 

The  Major  told  me  "  Righto,"  and  not  to  be  long. 
We  weren't  running  a  kindergarten.  If  the  chap  got 
left  behind,  it  was  his  own  look-out. 

As  we  hurried  through  the  battery,  they  were 
carrying  out  the  men  who  were  incapable  and  lash- 
ing them  with  drag-ropes  to  the  gun-seats  like  sacks. 
The  billets  were  not  more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty 
yards  from  the  horse-lines;  they  consisted  of  a 
mouldy  stable,  standing  on  one  side  of  a  farm-yard, 
the  whole  of  which  was  made  foul  by  an  accumu- 
lation of  manure,  as  is  the  custom  in  French  farm- 
yards. 

We  tiptoed  our  way  across  the  reeking  mess, 
choosing  our  path  so  as  not  to  sink  too  deeply  into 


120        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

it.  At  the  doorway  to  the  low  barn-like  structure, 
we  called  the  man's  name,  "  Standish."  When  he 
did  not  answer,  I  loosened  my  flashlight  from  my 
belt  and  swept  the  ray  along  the  broken  floor  and 
into  the  farthest  corners.  It  seemed  not  unlikely 
that  he  might  have  fallen  asleep  there.  All  I  saw 
was  the  refuse  of  worn-out  equipment  and  empty 
bean-tins  neatly  gathered  up  into  sacks.  Already  I 
could  hear  the  first  of  the  teams  pulling  out  and  the 
rattling  of  the  guns  on  the  road  as  they  left  the 
padded  surface  of  the  turf.  If  we  did  not  hurry,  we 
should  be  left  behind  ourselves. 

"  I  told  you  he  wasn't  here,  sir,"  the  Sergeant 
said. 

Just  as  we  were  leaving,  I  flashed  my  light  round 
the  building  for  one  last  look.  In  so  doing  I  tilted 
the  lamp,  so  that  the  ray  groped  among  the  rafters 
of  the  roof.  The  Sergeant  started  back  with  a  curse, 
knocking  the  lamp  from  my  hand.  Just  above  his 
head  he  had  seen  it  hanging,  its  face  staring  down 
at  him  crookedly. 

We  were  too  late  when  we  cut  him  down;  so  we 
moved  out  that  night  upon  our  anonymous  march 
with  an  extra  passenger  lashed  to  a  gun-seat,  on 
whose  incapacity  we  had  not  counted. 

The  nightingales  were  still  singing  in  the  thickets 
when  we  left,  singing  of  things  forsaken,  of  beauty 
and  of  passion.  I  could  not  shake  off  the  impression 
that  it  was  their  sweet,  intolerable  melancholy  which 
had  urged  him  to  do  it.  If  we  had  taken  to  the  road 
an  hour  earlier,  he  would  have  been  saved  from 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         121 

that  act.  Poor  lad !  He  had  played  the  game  to  the 
top  of  his  bent,  till  he  had  passed  the  limit  of  his 
power  to  suffer.  What  was  the  limit  of  us  who  re- 
mained? How  much  further  had  we  to  go  till  we 
reached  the  breaking-point? 

"  There's    those   that   does   it   because   they're 
frightened."    Trottrot  knew  of  what  he  was  talking. 


vn 

WE  march,  and  sleep,  and  work  as  in  a  dream. 
Nothing  that  we  do  or  see  seems  any  longer 
real  to  us.  This  inverted  way  of  living  by  night  and 
drowsing  by  day,  blunts  one's  sense  of  actuality  as 
with  a  drug.  The  only  fact  which  remains  con- 
stant is  our  ceaseless  struggle  against  weariness. 

There's  no  longer  the  faintest  doubt  as  to  where 
we  are  going;  we're  marching  into  the  great  shove, 
to  which  all  the  previous  four  years  of  war  have 
been  a  preface.  We're  marching,  if  human  en- 
durance can  carry  us,  straight  into  the  heart  of 
Germany.  Among  ourselves  we  make  no  more 
attempts  to  disguise  what  is  intended;  as  though 
the  doors  of  a  furnace  had  been  suddenly  flung 
wide,  we  feel  the  heat  of  the  trial  which  will  con- 
sume us.  To-day  is  the  fourth  of  August;  we  hope 
to  be  in  Berlin  by  Christmas  —  some,  but  not  all 
of  us. 

One  looks  curiously  into  the  faces  of  his  com- 
panions, half  expecting  to  find  their  fates  written  on 
their  foreheads.  In  so  doing,  he  is  not  morbid;  he 
simply  braces  himself  to  meet  the  facts  of  things 
which  must  surely  happen.  He  knows  that  many 
of  those  who  jest  with  him  to-day,  will  lie  endlessly 
asleep  to-morrow.  He  wonders  vaguely  to  which 
company  he  himself  will  belong  —  whether  to  the 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        123 

company  of  those  who  sleep  or  the  company  of  those 
who  go  toiling  forward.  It  seems  as  though  those 
who  are  to  fall  in  the  battle  must  have  been  already 
selected;  they  must  have  been  assigned  some  mark 
by  which  they  may  be  detected.  So  one  watches 
his  comrades  stealthily  to  discover  the  invisible  tag 
which  records  their  lot. 

I  find  myself  speaking  to  my  men  more  as  a 
friend  and  less  as  an  officer;  the  thought  of  that 
last  night-march,  which  all  men  must  make  soli- 
tarily, is  drawing  us  together  in  a  closer  bond.  A 
voice  is  continually  whispering,  "It  may  be  the  last 
time  you  can  be  decent  to  that  chap  —  the  last 
time." 

I  notice  the  counterpart  of  my  own  feeling  in  the 
attitude  of  the  drivers  towards  their  horses.  They, 
too,  realise  that  for  many  of  us,  whether  human  or 
four-footed,  the  hour  of  parting  is  approaching  fast 
When  stables  are  ended  and  the  hungry  crowd  is 
dashing  for  the  cook-house  in  a  greedy  endeavour 
to  collar  the  biggest  portions,  the  drivers  turn  back 
to  their  teams  to  give  Chum  and  Blighty  an  extra 
pat  and  to  shake  the  hay  a  little  loose  for  them. 
The  horses  sniff  against  the  men's  shoulders  and 
arch  their  necks  to  gaze  after  them  with  a  mild 
wonder  in  their  eyes. 

In  what  part  of  the  line  lies  the  furnace  into 
which  they  mean  to  hurl  us?  Some  say  that  we  are 
going  to  join  up  with  the  French  —  others  that  the 
Americans  will  be  behind  us  and  will  leap-frog  us 
when  we  have  crumpled  up  the  Hun  Front  by  our 


124         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

attack.  There  are  many  wild  rumours,  the  most 
likely  of  which  is  that  the  neighbourhood  of  Rheims 
will  be  our  jumping-off  point.  But  to  get  us  there 
they  will  have  to  entrain  us;  there  are  no  signs  of 
entraining  at  present.  Nothing  is  certain,  except 
that  every  night  we  are  crawling  southwards. 

Are  we  brave  or  merely  indifferent?  The  Army 
crushes  imagination  and  sentiment.  To  attain  a 
certain  object  lives  have  to  be  expended  —  the  more 
lives  in  proportion  to  the  worth  of  the  object.  For 
those  who  plan  the  game  at  General  Headquarters 
death  and  courage  are  an  impersonal  sum  in 
mathematics:  so  many  men  and  horses  in  the  field, 
of  whom  so  many  can  be  spared  for  corpses.  But 
the  sum  is  not  impersonal  for  us.  It  consists  of  an 
infinite  number  of  intimate  computations:  the  little 
sums  of  what  life  means  to  us  and  of  what  our  lives 
mean  to  the  old  men,  mothers,  wives,  sweethearts 
who  scan  the  casualty  lists  feverishly,  hoping  not 
to  read  our  names  among  the  fallen.  General  Head- 
quarters cannot  be  expected  to  complicate  their 
book-keeping  by  taking  these  bijou  exercises  in  ad- 
dition and  subtraction  into  their  immenser  calcu- 
lations. 

For  us,  in  its  most  heroic  analysis,  the  arithmetic 
of  war  is  an  auditing  of  our  characters  —  an  im- 
partial balancing  of  the  selfish  and  the  noble,  the 
cowardly  and  courageous  in  our  natures.  Long  ago 
when  we  first  enlisted,  before  we  had  any  knowledge 
of  the  horrors  we  were  to  suffer,  we  set  ourselves  on 
record  as  believing  that  there  were  principles  of  right 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         125 

and  wrong  at  stake,  in  the  defence  of  which  it  was 
worth  our  while  to  die.  An  offensive  of  this  mag- 
nitude is  the  test  as  to  whether,  with  an  experienced 
knowledge  of  the  horrors,  we  are  still  men  enough 
to  hold  to  our  bargain  and  prove  our  sincerity  with 
our  blood.  It  is  the  test  of  scarlet  —  the  fiercest 
of  all  tests,  which  we  encounter  as  heroes  or  avoid 
as  moral  bankrupts. 

Yesterday,  when  the  battery  got  drunk,  there  can 
be  little  doubt  as  to  why  it  was  done:  the  suspense 
of  a  Judgment  Day  for  which  no  place  or  time  had 
been  allotted,  made  men  afraid.  Standish  sym- 
bolizes that  terror.  He  could  struggle  with  a  fear 
which  was  present  and  which  he  could  defeat  with 
his  hands,  as  he  proved  at  Willerval;  the  fear,  the 
coming  of  which  was  indefinite  and  the  shadow  of 
which  groped  only  in  his  mind,  crushed  him.  Per- 
haps the  rest  of  us  avoided  his  fate  because  we  were 
of  a  coarser  type.  Maybe  it  was  the  very  fineness 
of  his  mental  qualities  that  tripped  him  up.  What- 
ever the  difference,  the  fact  remains  that  he  failed 
in  the  test  of  scarlet;  at  the  very  moment  when  his 
comrades,  equally  weary,  equally  afraid,  equally  in 
love  with  life,  were  marching  out  to  throttle  the 
danger,  he,  poor  lad,  was  dangling  from  a  rafter, 
shameful  and  unsightly,  a  self-confessed  quitter  and 
pain-dodger.  Why  should  a  man  do  a  thing  like 
that?  He  rushed  upon  the  certainty  of  death,  when 
by  living  he  would  still  have  retained  his  chance  of 
life.  All  through  the  war  such  incidents  have 
happened,  self-maimings,  suicides,  desertions  — 


126        THE   TEST    OF    SCARLET 

all  manners  of  make-shift  means  of  escaping  the 
Judgment  Day  of  the  attack.  But  death  is  not  to 
be  avoided  by  running  away  from  it;  those  who 
flee  from  it  in  the  Front-line  find  it  waiting  for  them 
behind  the  lines  at  their  comrades'  hands.  "I 
couldn't  face  the  Huns,"  one  deserter  said  with  a 
kind  of  self-wonder,  as  he  squared  his  shoulders 
bravely  to  meet  the  impact  of  the  firing-squad,  "but 
I  can  face  this."  To  my  way  of  thinking  it  requires 
more  courage  to  put  a  rope  round  your  neck  and 
fling  yourself  down  from  the  rafters  of  a  foul  stable, 
or  to  hold  yourself  erect  in  the  early  dawn  with  your 
eyes  blind-folded,  waiting  without  whimpering  for 
British  bullets  to  strike  you.  There  must  be 
different  kinds  of  courage,  some  of  which  war  can 

employ  and  others Cowardice  gives  one  the 

courage  of  desperation,  so  that  one  can  calmly  per- 
form the  most  terrible  of  acts.  I  suppose  the  ex- 
planation of  such  men  as  Standish  is  that  terror,  too 
long  contemplated,  drives  them  mad.  How  much 
longer  can  the  rest  of  us  stand  its  contemplation? 

Last  night's  march  was  like  a  night  of  delirium 
with  moments  of  consciousness;  the  moments  of  con- 
sciousness were  the  worst.  We  had  scarcely  struck 
the  road  before  men  started  to  fall  asleep  in  their 
saddles.  When  orders  to  halt  or  to  pull  over  to  the 
right  were  passed  down  the  column,  they  were  not 
complied  with.  At  first  the  horses  saved  us  from 
tangles,  for  they  heard  the  orders  and,  without 
guiding,  carried  them  out.  But  then  the  horses 
commenced  to  sleep  as  they  walked,  adding  to  our 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        127 

danger  the  risk  that  they  might  stumble.  The  en- 
tire battery  was  worn  out  and  it  was  difficult  to 
know  on  whom  you  could  depend.  We  officers  rode 
up  and  down,  rousing  the  men  and  trying  to  keep 
the  sergeants  and  corporals  on  the  alert;  but  they, 
too,  in  many  cases  were  no  better  and  wandered 
nodding  in  their  saddles.  Soon  after  the  last  of  the 
sunset  had  faded  the  night  had  become  intensely 
dark;  it  was  scarcely  possible  to  see  your  hand 
before  your  face.  Rain  began  to  descend.  The 
temperature  sank  and,  after  the  heat  of  the  August 
day,  it  became  as  cold  as  November. 

Orders  were  passed  back  that  every  gunner  and 
employed  man  had  to  walk  that  the  vehicles  might 
be  lightened.  Some  of  them  had  sore  feet  from  the 
previous  night's  march;  many  of  them  were  still 
groggy  from  their  excesses.  It  required  extraor- 
dinary vigilance  to  be  sure  that  no  one  was  falling 
behind  and  getting  lost.  We  shuffled  along  under 
dripping  trees  in  sullen  silence.  Very  often  our 
route  lay  by  by-roads,  that  the  traffic  might  be  re- 
lieved on  main  thoroughfares.  The  by-roads  were 
soggy  and  loose  in  their  surface;  branches  and 
brambles  slashed  across  our  faces,  leaping  out  on 
us  from  the  dark. 

Everything  was  on  the  move,  tanks,  heavies, 
siege-guns,  transport.  They  were  pushing  south, 
all  pouring  in  the  same  direction,  and  no  one  seemed 
to  care  whom  he  thrust  aside  so  long  as  he  himself 
got  there.  For  long  periods  we  were  held  up  by 
lorries  and  caterpillars  which  had  become  ditched 


128        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

ahead  of  us.  It  seemed  as  though  we  could  never 
reach  our  camping  place  before  sunrise.  Our 
strict  orders  were  to  be  off  the  road  and  hidden  be- 
fore daylight.  The  men  who  had  made  themselves 
dead  drunk  before  we  started  had  the  best  of  it; 
lashed  to  their  gun-seats,  they  slept  on  blissfully  un- 
conscious of  the  rain  and  cold.  From  midnight  till 
dawn  was  the  worst  period ;  one's  eyes  were  so  heavy 
that  it  was  an  agony  to  keep  them  from  closing.  It 
became  necessary  to  dismount  and  to  lead  one's 
horse  to  prevent  oneself  from  drowsing.  This 
remedy  only  brought  new  complications,  for  it  was 
impossible  to  superintend  one's  section  while  on 
foot;  mounted  men  in  front  who  slept,  kept  colliding 
with  the  teams  and  vehicles.  Every  one  was  cross, 
and  strafing,  and  unjust  by  the  time  the  day  began 
to  whiten.  It  had  seemed  that  the  sun  had  set  for 
good ;  now  that  it  had  risen,  we  felt  ashamed  of  our 
appearance.  We  were  muddy  and  sodden;  our  one 
desire  was  to  find  a  place  where  we  could  lie  down 
and  rest. 

When  we  had  limped  into  the  field  in  which  we 
are  at  present  bivouacked,  we  found  that  only  two 
teams  could  be  watered  at  one  time  at  the  ford. 
This  meant  that  grooming  had  to  be  prolonged 
until  the  last  horse  hi  the  battery  had  been  watered. 
By  the  time  stables  had  been  dismissed,  the  men 
were  so  tired  that  they  did  not  care  for  breakfast, 
but  tumbled  off  to  sleep  where  they  dropped. 

Today  I  am  orderly-dog,  on  duty  for  twenty-four 
hours  from  reveille  to  reveille.  I  sit  here  among 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        129 

the  bales  of  hay  which  have  been  thrown  down  from 
the  G.  S.  wagons,  and  I  watch  —  and  I  marvel,  as  I 
never  cease  to  marvel,  at  the  men's  indomitable 
pluck.  Now  that  they  know  what  lies  ahead  of 
them,  their  behaviour  is  completely  nonchalant  and 
ordinary.  They  have  accepted  the  idea  of  catas- 
trophe and  have  dismissed  it  from  their  minds.  If 
they  refer  to  it  at  all,  it  is  merely  as  material  out  of 
which  to  manufacture  jokes  against  themselves. 

Last  night's  march,  with  its  cold  and  wet,  being 
over  is  forgotten.  More  night-marches  lie  before 
them  which  may  be  worse  than  the  last,  but  they 
cross  no  bridges  until  they  come  to  them.  For  the 
moment  the  sun  shines  luxuriously  and  their  fatigue 
is  gone.  Some  of  them  are  practising  pitching  with 
a  base-ball;  others  are  washing  and  cooling  their 
swollen  feet  in  the  ford.  The  gramophone,  which 
we  always  carry  with  us,  is  playing  popular  selec- 
tions from  the  latest  thing  in  musical  comedy.  It's 
a  point  of  honour  with  every  officer  in  our  mess 
when  he  goes  on  leave  to  bring  back  at  least  half-a- 
dozen  new  records.  The  tunes  bring  pleasant  mem- 
ories of  girls  and  taxis  and  dinner-parties  and 
dances,  of  crowded  theatres  jammed  with  cheering 
khaki,  of  uproarious  laughter,  of  sirens  blowing  and 
bombs  falling  on  London  house-tops  —  the  mem- 
ories still  are  pleasant  —  and  of  late,  adventurous 
home-comings  along  unlighted  thoroughfares  to 
sheeted  beds.  All  of  which  memories  are  in  rosy 
contrast  to  the  stern  laboriousness  of  our  present. 
Afar  off  I  can  see  Bully  Beef,  toddling  on  chubby 


i3o        THE    TEST   OF   SCARLET 

legs  along  the  edge  of  the  wood  gathering  wild- 
flowers.  That  slim  young  soldier,  who  follows  him 
with  her  eyes  between  intervals  of  mending  a  tunic, 
must  be  Suzette.  The  scene  is  extraordinarily 
restful.  We  might  be  planning  to  live  forever. 
Wherever  the  eye  rests  the  prevailing  note  is  sanity 
and  calm.  And  yet  our  calmness  is  only  an  out- 
ward pretence;  it  means  nothing  more  than  this, 
that  we  are  in  hiding  from  the  spies  of  the  enemy. 
The  woods  which  surround  us  were  selected  that  no 
one  might  know  that  Foch's  Pets  are  on  the  march. 
A  further  emphasis  was  laid  on  the  magnitude  of  the 
ordeal  which  awaits  us  by  an  order  regarding  men 
under  arrest,  which  we  received  this  morning;  they 
are  to  be  released  and  the  charges  against  them 
dropped,  that  they  may  be  available  for  cannon- 
fodder.  This  is  no  act  of  mercy;  it  simply  means 
that  every  last  man  will  be  needed  for  the  replacing 
of  casualties. 

The  true  attitude  of  the  fighting-man  towards 
this  concert-pitch  commotion  was  expressed  by  the 
Major,  when  he  sat  up  in  his  sleeping-sack  and 
rubbed  his  eyes  at  lunch- time.  He  looked  an  ab- 
surdly rebellious  little  figure  in  his  khaki  shirt-tails 
and  without  a  tie  or  collar.  "  I  tell  you  what  it  is; 
I'm  fed  up  with  all  this  secrecy  and  nonsense. 
I  don't  wonder  that  the  chaps  got  drunk;  when 
you're  unconscious  is  the  only  time  that  you  possess 
yourself.  I  don't  mind  the  fighting;  what  I  object 
to  is  this  being  mucked  about  by  everybody.  I'm 
not  a  Major;  I'm  a  policeman.  And  the  Colonels 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         131 

and  Generals  who  boss  me,  they're  bigger  policemen. 
In  the  Army  everyone  who  is  not  a  Tommy  is  a 
policeman,  with  a  stronger  policeman  above  him  to 
boss  him.  We  interfere  with  one  another  to  such 
an  extent  that  we're  disciplined  out  of  our  initiative 
and  self-confidence.  I'm  sick  of  it  all;  I'm  off." 

He  then  explained  in  detail  what  it  was  he  was 
sick  of.  He  was  sick  of  army-rations;  sick  of  night- 
marches;  sick  of  the  paper- warfare  which  blew  in 
from  Headquarters  every  hour  of  the  day  de- 
manding answers;  sick  of  having  to  strafe  his  men 
and  being  strafed  in  his  turn  by  the  Colonel.  He 
wanted  to  get  away  to  where  he  didn't  have  to  blow 
his  nose  in  accordance  with  King's  Regulations, 
where  he  didn't  have  to  eat  what  a  Government  had 
provided  for  him,  where  he  didn't  have  to  do  every- 
thing in  the  dread  of  a  calling  down  from  higher 
authorities. 

"  You're  orderly-dog  for  today,"  he  said.  "  You 
can  carry  on.  If  you  have  to  pull  out,  leave  a 
mounted  man  behind  to  guide  me  on.  I'm  going  to 
find  a  place  where  the  food  tastes  different;  if  I  find 
more  than  I  want,  I'll  bring  you  back  a  portion. 
I'm  going  to  take  Captain  Heming  with  me;  the 
rest  of  the  officers  can  wander  about,  so  long  as  they 
get  back  by  six  o'clock  and  there  are  always  two 
within  call  in  the  event  of  a  movement  order." 

The  rest  of  the  officers  are  Tubby  Grain,  the 
centre  section  commander,  Gus  Edwine,  the  com- 
mander of  the  left  section,  Sam  Bradley,  who  is  in 
charge  of  the  signallers,  and  Steve  Hoadley,  who  is 


i3 2         THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

attached  as  spare-officer.  Of  them  all  I  like  Tubby 
best.  He's  fat,  and  brave,  and  humourous.  He 
used  to  mix  soft-drinks  in  a  druggist's  store,  and 
started  his  career  at  the  Front  as  a  sergeant.  He 
has  a  weakness  for  referring  to  himself  as  a  "  tem- 
porary gent  "  and,  if  he  weren't  so  lazy,  would  make 
a  cracking  fine  officer.  He's  as  scrupulously  honour- 
able with  men  as  he  is  unreliable  with  women.  In 
his  pocket-book  he  carries  a  cheap  photograph 
signed,  "  Yours  lovingly,  Gertie."  He  shows  it  to 
you  sentimentally  as  "  the  picture  of  my  girl,"  yet 
the  next  moment  will  recite  all  manner  of  escapades. 

His  most  permanent  affair  since  he  came  to 
France  is  with  an  estaminet-keeper's  daughter  at 
Bruay.  Out  of  the  sale  of  intoxicants  to  British 
Tommies  she  has  collected  as  her  percentage  a  dot 
of  fifty  thousand  francs  —  an  immense  sum  to  her. 
With  this,  when  the  war  has  been  won  and  they  are 
married,  she  proposes  to  buy  a  small  hotel.  Tubby 
is  non-committal  when  she  mentions  marriage.  I 
don't  know  how  serious  his  intentions  are,  and  I 
don't  believe  he  knows  himself.  He  gives  her  no 
definite  answers,  but  writes  her  scores  of  letters. 
He  gambles  heavily  and  always  loses;  but  whatever 
his  losses,  he's  invariably  cheery  and  willing  to  lend 
money.  One  has  to  take  his  companions  as  he  finds 
them  at  the  Front;  it's  the  kindness  of  Tubby 's 
heart  that  recommends  him. 

Gus  Edwine  is  of  an  entirely  different  stamp. 
He's  conscientious,  unmerry,  and  solid.  He  never 
plays  cards,  is  poor  company,  but  knows  his  work. 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        133 

He  has  a  girl  who's  a  nursing-sister  at  a  Casualty 
Clearing  Station.  He  takes  his  love  with  sad 
seriousness,  and  beats  his  way  to  her  by  stealing 
lifts  on  Army  lorries  whenever  we're  within  thirty 
miles  of  her  hospital.  I  have  my  suspicions  that 
that's  where  he's  gone  at  present.  He  never  tells. 
In  a  stiff  fight  he's  a  man  to  be  relied  on,  and  com- 
mands everyone's  respect  on  account  of  his  high 
morals  and  cool  courage. 

Sam  Bradley  is  the  only  married  officer  in  our 
battery.  I  don't  think  he  can  have  been  married 
long,  for  he  smiles  all  the  while  quietly  to  himself 
as  though  he  had  a  happy  secret.  Wherever  we  are, 
in  a  muddy  dug-out  or  back  at  rest,  the  first  piece 
of  his  possessions  to  be  unpacked  is  a  leather-framed 
portrait  of  a  kind-looking  girl.  Much  of  his  leisure 
is  spent  in  writing  letters,  and  most  of  his  mail  is  hi 
a  round  decided  handwriting  which  we  take  to  be 
hers. 

Steve  Hoadley  is  new  to  the  war.  He  has  never 
been  in  any  important  action  and  has  yet  to  prove 
himself.  He  has  a  manner,  which  irritates  the 
Major,  of  "knowing  it  all,"  and  is  frequently  in 
trouble.  The  men  rather  resent  taking  orders  from 
him,  since  many  of  them  have  seen  three  years  of 
active  service.  On  the  whole  he  does  not  have  a 
happy  lot.  None  of  us  have  at  first.  He  would  get 
on  all  right  if  he  wasn't  so  positive.  I  think  he's 
made  up  his  mind  to  seize  this  offensive  to  show 
his  worth.  Here's  good  luck  to  him  in  his  effort. 


i34        THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

Dan  Turpin,  the  Quartermaster  —  good  old  Dan 
with  his  large  heart  and  immense  sympathy  for 
everybody  —  has  just  been  to  see  me.  He  looked 
troubled  as  he  halted  in  front  of  me,  rubbing  the 
wart  on  his  nose  thoughtfully. 

"  What  is  it,  Quarter?"  I  asked.  "  Anything  the 
matter  with  the  transport?  If  it's  a  long  story, 
you'd  better  take  a  pew  while  you  tell  me." 

*  It's  nothing  to  do  with  the  transport,  sir,"  he 
said,  and  remained  standing.  "It's  to  do  with  what 
Suzette's  doing  over  there." 

"  What  is  she  doing?"  I  glanced  lazily  over  the 
sun-lit  distance  in  her  direction.  "  She's  mending 
something,  isn't  she?" 

Dan  shook  his  head.  Then,  in  order  to  give  me 
another  chance  to  guess,  he  added,  "  And  it's  got  to 
do  with  what  Bully  Beef's  doing." 

"  He's  gathering  wild-flowers." 

"  Yes,  He's  gathering  wild-flowers,"  Dan  said. 
"  But  she  ain't  mending  anything;  she's  putting 
something  together." 

I  unslung  my  glasses  and  focussed  them  to  get  a 
closer  view.  "  Ah,  I  see  what  she's  up  to  now. 
She's  made  a  kind  of  pillow  out  of  a  piece  of  horse- 
blanket  and  she's  stuffing  it  with  leaves." 

"  It's  a  pillow  for  his  head,"  Dan  said  solemnly, 
"  and  the  flowers  is  to  cover  him,  before  we  throw 
the  earth  on." 

Then  I  knew  what  Dan  wanted  and,  rising  to  my 
feet,  accompanied  him  without  further  words.  In 
the  wood,  which  surrounds  our  camp,  we  have  just 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        135 

buried  Standish,  with  Suzette's  pillow  beneath  his 
head  and  Bully  Beef's  wild-flowers  for  a  covering. 
On  account  of  the  way  he  died,  there  was  no  parade 
of  the  battery  to  do  him  honour;  but  many  of  the 
men  attended.  Trottrot  was  there,  whom  everyone 
regards  as  untrustworthy  under  shell-fire.  He  was 
one  of  those  who  lowered  the  body,  bruised  by  its 
last  night's  march  on  the  gun-seat,  into  its  narrow 
bed.  While  the  short  ceremony  was  in  progress,  the 
sound  of  the  gramophone  was  stopped  and  the 
shouts  of  the  base-ball  pitchers  died  into  silence. 
As  we  were  seen  to  emerge  from  the  wood,  with 
scarcely  a  moment's  delay,  the  sounds  started  up 

not    in    callousness,    but   in   a   frenzied    effort 

to  forget.  It  was  fully  an  hour  after  I  had  again 
seated  myself  among  the  bales  of  hay  that  I  saw 
Suzette  and  Trottrot  come  back.  I  could  guess 
what  they  had  been  doing— making  the  place 
beautiful.  But  why  should  Trottrot  do  that?  He 
had  not  been  the  dead  man's  friend.  Was  it  be- 
cause he  himself  had  come  so  near  to  cowardice  that 
he  could  stoop  to  be  tender? 

I  shall  have  no  time  to  see  what  they  have  done 
to  mark  the  grave,  for  a  runner  has  just  brought  a 
movement  order  from  Brigade  that  we  are  to  be 
prepared  to  march  by  sun-down.  It  doesn't  give  us 
much  of  a  margin,  for  the  smoke-gray  haze  of  even- 
ing  is  already  creeping  through  the  tree-tops. 
Major  and  Heming  have  not  yet  returned. 


VIII 

LAST  night  we  had  another  terrible  march; 
neither  the  men  nor  the  horses  can  stand 
much  more  of  it.  It  isn't  a  matter  of  stoutness  of 
heart;  it's  a  plain  question  of  physical  endurance. 
How  many  more  nights  can  men  and  horses  go  with- 
out sleep  and  bungle  through  the  darkness  of  a 
strange  country  without  collapsing?  It  isn't  as 
though  these  were  easy  marches  —  all  of  them  are 
forced.  And  then  again,  it  isn't  as  though  we  had 
the  knowledge  that  in  a  few  days'  time  our  present 
exertions  would  be  followed  by  a  rest;  on  the  con- 
trary, we  know  that  our  present  exertions  are  as 
nothing  compared  with  what  will  be  demanded  of 
us.  Everybody  is  extraordinarily  willing  —  there's 
no  grumbling;  but  we're  working  under  a  high 
nervous  tension  of  suspense  which,  in  itself,  is  ex- 
hausting. If  we  were  actually  in  battle,  our  ex- 
citement would  carry  us  twice  as  far  without  letting 
us  drop.  In  the  presence  of  death  one  can  achieve 
the  incredible;  these  miracles  are  difficult  to  accom- 
plish while  one  still  has  a  reasonable  certainty  of 
living. 

To  tell  the  truth,  our  equipment  isn't  equal  to 
the  strain  which  is  being  laid  upon  it.  Our  teams 
are  not  matched;  many  of  them  are  worn  out; 
some  of  them  consist  of  mules.  One  wonders 

136 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         137 

whether  they  could  go  into  action  at  the  gallop  with- 
out falling  down.  For  the  past  three  years  there's 
been  precious  little  galloping  for  the  Field  Artillery 
on  the  Western  Front.  Our  work  has  consisted  for 
the  most  part  of  dragging  our  guns  up  through  mud 
at  the  crawl  and  afterwards  of  packing  up  am- 
munition on  the  horses'  backs.  This  has  broken 
the  hearts  of  the  animals,  and  robbed  us  of  our 
dash  and  snap. 

The  animals  which  have  been  sent  to  us  during 
the  past  two  years  to  replace  casualties  are  of  an 
utterly  inferior  physique  and  stamp  from  those  we 
had  when  war  started.  They're  either  ponies  or 
draught-horses,  or  else  patched-up,  decrepit  old- 
timers  from  the  veterinary  hospitals,  which  have 
been  ill  or  wounded,  and  have  been  returned  to 
active  service  to  die  in  harness  because  no  others 
are  available.  Our  best  animals  are  the  few  sur- 
vivors we  have  of  the  original  teams  which  we 
brought  with  us  from  Canada  to  France. 

What  is  true  of  the  horses  is  equally  true  of  the 
men.  The  physical  standard  has  dropped.  In  1914, 
unless  one  were  physically  perfect,  it  was  impossible 
to  get  accepted.  To-day  both  among  the  officers 
and  in  the  ranks,  one  sees  spectacled  faces,  narrow 
chests,  stooping  shoulders  and  weak  legs.  Boys 
and  old  gray-haired  men  go  struggling  up  front 
through  the  mud  to-day  in  France.  Apparently, 
whatever  his  appearance,  anyone  is  eligible  to  wear 
khaki  who  can  tell  a  lie  about  how  long  he  has 
been  in  the  world.  I  would  make  a  guess  that  fully 


138        THE    TEST   OF   SCARLET 

a  third  of  our  drivers  and  gunners  had  not  seen 
their  eighteenth  birthdays  at  the  time  when  their 
military  age  was  recorded  as  twenty;  on  the  other 
hand,  there  is  a  goodly  proportion  who  are  supposed 
to  be  thirty  and  are  well  over  forty.  And  then,  be- 
sides those  who  are  too  old  or  too  young,  there  are 
the  crocks  —  men  who,  like  the  horses  from  the 
veterinary-hospitals,  have  been  patched  up  again 
and  again  and,  after  short  rests  at  comfortless 
places  somewhere  between  the  base  and  the  Front- 
line, have  once  more  been  returned  to  active  service 
to  help  push  the  Hun  a  little  farther  back  before 
they  themselves  stumble  into  an  open  grave.  These 
crocks  are  for  the  most  part  men  who  have  never 
had  the  luck  to  be  wounded;  if  they  had  once 
reached  a  hospital  in  England,  they  would  never 
have  been  allowed  to  see  the  Front  again.  But  the 
hospitals  in  France  are  compelled  to  be  less  mer- 
ciful; their  job  is  to  repair  the  broken  human 
mechanism  and  return  it  to  the  fighting-line  so  long 
as  it  has  any  usefulness.  Our  crocks  are  chiefly 
men  who  have  been  crushed  by  exposure  and  hard- 
ship. They  suffer  from  debility,  poor  feet,  rheu- 
matism, running-ears,  etc.;  the  ear-troubles  are 
caused  by  the  sharp  concussion  of  the  guns  in  the 
pits  when  they  are  fired.  I  suppose  those  in  author- 
ity have  been  forced  to  the  opinion  that  all  men  are 
of  equal  value  when  they  are  dead,  and  that  it's  a 
waste  of  energy,  when  you're  collecting  material  for 
cannon-fodder,  to  be  too  picksome. 

In  England,  after  the  Hun  drive  of  the  spring  had 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         139 

commenced,  the  magicians  of  the  man-power  boards 
were  taking  very  much  the  same  point  of  view,  and 
arbitrarily  improving  the  nation's  health  by  raising 
re-examined  C  III  men  to  an  A  I  category.  There 
are  few  men  now,  except  the  very  aged,  who  are  not 
on  paper  sufficiently  healthy  to  die  for  their  country. 
This  changed  attitude  is  summed  up  in  the  treat- 
ment of  wounded  men.  Whereas  to  have  been 
severely  wounded  was  formerly  a  just  reason  for 
honourable  discharge,  to-day  we  have  men  still  fight- 
ing who  have  made  the  trip  to  Blighty  five  times  on 
a  stretcher.  There  are  officers  who  have  suffered 
amputations,  who  are  still  carrying  on. 

Necessity  knows  no  law;  nevertheless,  this  des- 
perate use  which  we  are  making  of  both  human  and 
four-footed  material  which  is  below  par,  makes 
itself  felt  when  we  are  called  upon  for  unusual 
efforts.  We're  beginning  to  fear  lest  before  the 
show  starts,  these  forced  night  marches  may  use  up 
our  reserves  of  strength.  We  do  not  own  that  there 
are  any  limitations  to  our  power  to  obey  and  suffer, 
but  common-sense  tells  us  that  there  is  a  point 
beyond  which  the  flesh  cannot  be  driven,  however 
great  the  heart. 

Last  night  we  were  on  the  road  from  ten  o'clock 
till  seven  this  morning.  It  took  two  hours  from  the 
time  when  we  pulled  into  our  present  place  of  hiding, 
till  the  men  could  lie  down  and  rest.  Very  many  of 
the  horses  had  kicks  and  galls,  all  of  which  had  to 
be  attended  to  before  anyone  could  think  of  him- 
self. 


i4o        THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

I  call  this  our  place  of  hiding  purposely,  for  it  is 
so  obviously  just  that.  We  are  in  a  high  rolling 
country,  cut  up  into  shadowy  patterns  by  deep 
ravines,  and  dotted  where  it  lies  nearest  the  sky  by 
squares  and  oblongs  and  triangles  of  woods.  It  is 
in  one  of  these  protecting  woods  that  we  have  our 
bivouacs  and  horse-lines.  We  are  so  well  covered 
from  sight  that  peasants  in  the  nearest  village,  two 
miles  away,  do  not  suspect  our  presence.  We  have 
not  found  it  necessary  to  warn  the  men  against  re- 
vealing themselves;  they're  too  played  out  to  walk 
a  yard  further  than  is  necessary. 

A  glance  at  the  map  makes  our  game  of  guess- 
work grow  interesting.  We're  directly  to  the  west 
of  Amiens  now;  one  night's  march  would  bring  us 
into  the  line.  Amiens  is  the  great  junction-point  of 
the  railroad  system  which  feeds  the  entire  British 
Front  and  which  connects  us  up  with  the  French. 
The  Hun  came  perilously  near  to  capturing  it  this 
spring;  since  then  it  has  been  vacated  by  its  civilian 
population  and  kept  by  the  Hun  continually  under 
shell-fire.  The  result  has  been  that  trains  have  had 
to  make  a  detour  by  branch-lines  to  get  round  be- 
hind the  Amiens  salient,  and  our  military  transpor- 
tation, as  a  consequence,  has  been  working  under  a 
heavy  handicap.  Every  fighting-man  has  been 
aware  of  this,  for  whereas  formerly  one  could  buy 
almost  anything  within  reason  at  the  Expeditionary 
Force  Canteens,  since  the  spring  stocks  have  not 
been  replenished  and  only  limited  quantities  have 
been  allowed  to  be  purchased  by  each  person. 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         141 

There  have  been  weeks  together  when  one  has  had 
to  scour  the  country  far  and  wide  to  find  a  packet 
of  cigarettes.  After  so  much  mystery  and  so  many 
conjectures,  it  seems  not  unlikely  that  the  push  is 
to  be  put  on  to  save  Amiens. 

The  rumour  concerning  some  Canadian  troops 
having  been  sent  to  Ypres  to  deceive  the  Hun,  was 
confirmed  yesterday  by  our  Major.  In  his  ride 
abroad  he  met  the  Colonel  of  one  of  the  battalions 
which  had  sent  a  detachment.  From  him  he  learnt 
that  not  only  were  Canadians  and  Australians  sent 
over  in  a  series  of  raids  that  they  might  be  identi- 
fied by  the  enemy,  but  that  Canadian  Maple  Leaf 
badges  and  Australian  slouch-hats  had  been  issued 
to  other  units  who  were  holding  that  line,  that  they 
might  be  mistaken  for  the  storm-troops.  Whether 
the  ruse  has  succeeded  in  drawing  the  Hun  reserves 
up  north  he  could  not  learn. 

The  Major  and  Captain  Heming  rejoined  us  last 
night  just  as  I  commenced  to  lead  the  battery  out  of 
the  woods  on  to  the  high  road.  Directly  I  spoke  to 
Heming  I  had  the  feeling  that  something  was  wrong; 
it  was  about  half-an-hour  later  that  the  Major  sent 
back  word  for  me  to  ride  beside  him  and  told  me 
what  had  happened.  It  appears  that  at  the  officers' 
tea-room,  where  they  had  dinner,  a  number  of  week- 
old  London  dailies  were  strewn  about.  They  sat 
glancing  through  them  as  they  waited  for  the  meal 
to  be  served.  The  Major  had  got  hold  of  a  torn 
sheet,  when  he  came  across  a  column  headed,  The 
Coldest  Woman  In  London.  "This  sounds 


142        THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

promising,"  he  said  to  Heming;  "  I've  met  some  of 
her  sort  myself."  Then  he  started  to  read  the  item 
aloud,  throwing  in  his  own  racy  comments.  The 
coldest  woman  in  London,  it  appeared,  was  a  Mrs. 
Percy  Dragott.  She  was  reputed  to  have  ruined 
many  notable  careers  by  her  unresponsive  at- 
traction. She  was  extraordinarily  beautiful  and  had 
been  painted  by  many  artists.  The  best  known  of 
all  her  portraits  was  one  by 

"  Hulloa,  Heming,  this  can't  be  you,  can  it?  A 

chap  of  your  name  is  mentioned. By  Jove,  it 

must  be  you  though;  it  says  that  this  Heming  was  in 
Ottawa  when  war  broke  out,  and  is  at  present  at 
the  Front  with  the  Canadian  Artillery." 

"  Go  on,  sir,  will  you,  if  you  don't  mind?  I'd 
like  to  hear  a  little  more  about  this  Mrs.  Dragott." 
That,  according  to  the  Major,  was  all  that  Heming 
had  said;  but  his  face  was  very  white,  though  his 
voice  was  hard  and  steady.  So  the  Major  had  no 
option  but  to  read  on.  Mrs.  Dragott's  social  em- 
inence was  recorded  and  hints  were  thrown  out  as 
to  the  personalities  of  the  various  prominent  men 
who  had  broken  themselves  against  her  coldness. 
Her  husband  had  committed  suicide  five  years  be- 
fore, under  circumstances  which  had  helped  to  con- 
firm her  reputation  for  being  a  woman  incapable  of 
affection.  And  now,  dramatically,  after  a  hectic 
affair  with  a  man  who  had  proved  to  be  already 

married,  she  had  committed It  was  at  this 

point  that  the  paper  was  torn,  leaving  no  clue  as  to 
what  it  was  that  she  had  done.  Heming  had  been 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        143 

terribly  upset,  the  Major  said,  and  had  turned  the 
place  upside  down  to  find  the  missing  portion.  "  I 
have  an  idea,"  the  Major  told  me,  "  that  Heming 
himself  must  have  been  fond  of  her." 

"  Perhaps,"  I  said,  and  kept  my  mouth  shut,  for 
I  remembered  that  Mrs.  Percy  Dragott  was  the 
name  which  Heming  had  handed  to  me  that  day  on 
the  Somme,  when  we  were  caught  by  the  Hun  out 
in  No  Man's  Land  and  he  had  wriggled  his  way 
forward  that  he  might  risk  his  own  life  and  save 
ours.  What  was  it  that  she  had  done?  Had  she 
killed  herself  or  the  man?  I  could  imagine  all  the 
questions  that  kept  running  through  Heming's  head, 
as  he  followed  behind  the  wagon  that  carried 
Suzette,  riding  through  the  darkness  at  the  rear  of 
the  column. 

It  only  required  a  happening  of  this  sort  to  bring 
home  to  us  how  much  we  are  cut  off  from  the  out- 
side world.  Whatever  tragedies  are  suffered  by 
those  whom  we  have  loved,  we  cannot  go  to  their 
help.  Between  them  and  us  there  is  a  great  gulf 
fixed. 


It's  six  o'clock  in  the  evening.  We  had  made  up 
our  minds  that  we  would  certainly  be  here  for  the 
night;  it  did  not  seem  possible  that,  with  men 
and  horses  so  exhausted,  they  could  send  us  on  an- 
other march.  That's  what  they're  going  to  do,  how- 
ever. The  harnessing  up  is  nearly  completed  and 
the  first  of  the  teams  are  already  being  led  out  from 


144         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

the  lines  to  the  gun-park.  A  special  order  has  just 
come  in  for  me  to  join  the  Colonel  with  a  blanket 
and  rations  for  twenty-four  hours.  I  and  one  officer 
from  each  of  the  batteries  are  to  be  prepared  to  go 
forward  with  him  in  a  lorry.  Where  we  are  going 
and  for  what  purpose,  we  are  left  to  surmise. 


IX 

THE  adventure  has  begun  in  earnest.  All  the 
monotony  of  being  foot-sore  and  tired  is  for- 
gotten in  this  new  excitement.  They  can  push  us 
as  hard  as  they  like;  we  shall  not  fail  until  our 
strength  gives  out.  It's  the  game,  the  largeness  and 
the  splendour  of  it,  that  uplifts  us.  In  the  history 
of  the  world  no  fighting-men  ever  fought  for  such 
high  stakes  as  those  for  which  we  are  about  to  fight. 
Just  as  this  war  is  out  of  all  proportion  titanic  as 
compared  with  other  wars  which  have  been  waged 
by  men,  so  is  this  offensive,  which  we  intend  shall  be 
the  last  and  the  decisive  climax,  out  of  all  propor- 
tion titanic  as  compared  with  previous  offensives. 
It  doesn't  matter  that  we  are  physically  inefficient 
for  the  task;  we  have  been  physically  inefficient  for 
other  tasks,  which  we  have  nevertheless  accom- 
plished. We  were  sick,  both  men  and  horses,  when 
we  splashed  our  way  furiously  through  the  icy  mud 
to  those  last  attacks  which  won  the  battle  of  the 
Somme;  none  of  us  lay  down  on  the  job  till  we  had 
been  relieved  in  the  line.  The  very  day  that  we 
pulled  out  horses  died  in  their  tracks  and  men  col- 
lapsed. We  were  like  runners  who  had  saved  their 
last  ounce  for  the  final  lap  and  had  no  strength 
left  when  they  had  broken  the  tape. 
It  will  be  like  that  again;  stoutness  of  heart  will 
145 


146        THE   TEST   OF    SCARLET 

carry  us  to  success  long  after  our  bodies  have  backed 
down  on  us.  From  the  first  crack  out  of  the  box 
this  is  going  to  be  a  V.  C.  stunt  for  every  man  who 
takes  part  in  it;  that  there  won't  be  enough  V.  C's 
to  go  round  doesn't  trouble  us.  To  have  been 
privileged  to  share  in  such  an  undertaking  will  be 
reward  enough  and  a  sufficient  decoration.  We're 
going  to  bust  the  Hun  Front  so  completely  that  it 
will  never  stand  up  again.  We're  going  to  make  a 
hole  in  his  defences  through  which  all  the  troops 
which  are  behind  us  can  rush  like  a  deluge.  We're 
going  to  achieve  this  end  by  the  element  of  surprise 
and  the  devil-may-care  ferocity  of  our  attack.  The 
effect  will  be  like  the  breaking  of  a  dam:  we  shall 
spread  and  spread  till  the  military  arrogance  of  Ger- 
many is  flooded  out  of  sight  and  only  the  steeples 
and  roofs  of  the  highest  houses  show  up  above  the 
ruin's  surface  to  mark  the  spots  where  the  ancient 
menace  was  trapped  and  drowned. 

Last  night  we  found  our  lorries  waiting  for  us  at 
a  cross-roads;  they  were  headed  in  the  direction  of 
the  road  which  was  marked  To  AMIENS.  The 
sun  was  sinking  behind  the  uplands  as  we  set  out; 
the  last  sight  we  had  as  we  looked  back  through 
the  golden  solitude  was  our  brigade  of  artillery 
slowly  winding  like  a  black  snake  out  of  the  wood 
and  losing  itself  in  a  fold  of  the  hills.  The 
Colonel  was  silent;  he  gave  us  no  information,  save 
that  we  were  going  forward  to  choose  battery  po- 
sitions and  alternative  routes  for  bringing  in  our 
guns  and  ammunition  in  case  some  of  the  routes 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET         147 

were  shelled.  For  the  rest,  we  conjectured  that  the 
lorries  were  taking  us  past  points  where  it  would 
not  be  wise  for  the  brigade  to  travel. 

We  had  not  been  going  long,  when  we  began  to 
pass  Australian  Infantry.  First  of  all  we  met  them 
in  isolated  groups,  strolling  down  the  lanes  and 
through  the  wheat,  two  and  two,  with  their  arms 
about  the  waists  of  peasant-girls.  Very  often  the 
girls  had  plucked  wild-flowers  for  their  lovers,  and 
had  stuck  them  in  the  button-holes  of  their  tunics 
or  had  pinned  them  against  the  brims  of  their  broad 
slouch-hats.  One  wondered  with  how  many  soldier- 
men  these  girls  had  walked  since  the  war  had 
started,  and  how  many  of  their  soldier-men  still  re- 
mained above  ground  to  kiss  the  lips  of  a  living 
girl.  Without  being  told,  there  was  something  of 
false  flippancy  and  yearning  in  their  attitude  which 
made  us  understand  that  these  lovers  for  a  moment 
were  taking  their  last  stroll  together.  Like  the 
Canadians,  they  are  storm-troops,  and  will  be  lost  in 
the  smoke  of  battle  before  many  days  are  out. 

At  a  turn  in  the  road  we  came  across  a  girl  who 
had  flung  herself  down  beside  the  hedge  and  was 
sobbing  with  her  face  buried  in  her  hands.  Farther 
on,  by  a  few  hundred  yards,  we  passed  a  boy- 
private,  who  kept  halting  and  glancing  back  with 
trouble  in  his  eyes,  and  then  again  making  up  his 
mind  to  go  forward.  Many  a  deserter  has  been  shot 
not  because  he  was  a  coward,  but  because  he  had 
grown  too  fond  of  a  girl. 

We  entered  a  village  where  all  was  in  commotion. 


i48        THE    TEST   OF   SCARLET 

The  dusk  had  fallen.  In  the  windows  lights 
glimmered.  Trumpets  were  sounding.  Across 
farmyards,  and  in  and  out  of  barns  men  hurried 
with  lanterns.  Infantry,  in  their  full  marching 
order,  were  tumbling  out  from  houses  and  forming 
up,  two  deep,  along  the  street.  Rolls  were  being 
called  and  absentees  searched  for.  Officers  on 
horse-back  fidgetted  impatiently  or  went  at  the 
sharp  trot,  carrying  messages.  Bursts  of  laughter 
and  song  from  the  gardens  behind  the  cottages, 
seemed  to  mock  the  atmosphere  of  military 
sternness.  Behind  the  darkness  there  was  the 
knowledge  of  stolen  kisses.  The  storm-troops  were 
saying  "Good-bye"  to  life  and  moving  one  stage 
nearer  to  the  slaughter.  We  won  free  from  the 
village  and  were  soon  on  a  high  road,  doing  our 
forty  miles  an  hour. 

In  the  dusk  the  sharp  details  of  the  country  were 
blurred,  but  we  saw  enough  to  know  that  its 
aspect  was  changing.  There  were  no  more  peasant- 
girls  with  their  soldier-lovers;  the  fields  were 
uncared  for  —  all  the  civilian  population  had  been 
pushed  back.  We  came  to  villages  full  of  deserted 
houses,  with  roofs  smashed  and  walls  gaping  where 
bombs  had  been  dropped.  Under  the  protection  of 
trees,  in  lanes  and  side-roads,  motor  and  horse- 
transport  was  waiting  for  the  sky  to  become 
sufficiently  dark  for  it  to  be  safe  for  them  to  ad- 
vance. At  every  cross-road  we  were  halted  by 
military-police  till  our  special  order  had  been 
presented  and  examined.  Ahead  of  us  the  cathedral 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         149 

spires  and  towers  of  Amiens  grew  up;  like  fire-flies 
flickering  above  them,  though  actually  at  a  dis- 
tance of  miles  behind  them,  the  flares  and  rockets 
of  the  Hun  Front  commenced  their  maniac  dance. 

We  crept  into  the  city,  slowing  down  to  avoid 
gaping  holes  in  the  pave.  It  was  a  city  of  the  dead. 
No  movement  was  allowed  till  night  had  grown  com- 
pletely dark..  Shutters  sagged  on  their  hinges. 
Doors  stood  wide,  just  as  they  had  been  left  in  the 
hurry  of  the  exit.  Windows  stared  blindly,  with 
broken  panes  and  curtains  faded  and  flapping.  On 
the  pavement  the  debris  lay  strewn  of  household 
furniture  which  had  been  carefully  carried  out,  and 
then  left  in  the  mad  stampede  of  the  panic.  One 
could  picture  it  all  as  the  terror  had  spread  and  the 
horror  had  been  whispered  from  mouth  to  mouth, 
"  He's  broken  through  —  the  Boche  is  coming." 

Amiens,  as  I  last  saw  it,  was  the  Front-line's 
dream  of  Paradise  —  a  place  where  one  could  keep 
warm,  where  one  could  wash  to  his  heart's  content, 
where  one  could  laugh  and  live  without  being 
hungry,  where  one  could  hear  the  voices  of  children 
and  watch  the  faces  of  pretty  girls.  It  was  a  city  of 
clubs,  tea-rooms,  cinemas,  canteens,  tramways, 
hotels,  hospitable  fires.  In  Amiens  one  could  still 
believe  in  the  glory  of  war,  for  the  Indian  cavalry 
with  their  brilliant  turbans  and  the  hunting-men 
from  the  Home  Counties  were  there,  all  waiting  for 
the  break  in  the  line  to  occur  when  the  swordsmen 
of  the  Empire  would  get  their  chance.  It  was  more 
honestly  gay  than  Paris,  more  gallantly  mad  than 


150        THE   TEST    OF   SCARLET 

London,  more  wistful  and  unwise  than  either.  From 
in  front  of  Courcelette,  where  one  drowned  in  the 
mud,  it  was  possible  to  reach  Amiens  by  lorry  in  a 
handful  of  hours.  Amiens  was  to  us,  when  I  last 
saw  it,  a  glimpse  of  Blighty  set  down  at  the  back- 
door of  hell. 

But  since  then  the  Hun  drive  of  the  spring  had 
occurred  and,  with  the  approach  of  tragedy,  every 
vestige  of  gallantry  had  vanished.  War,  with  its 
inevitable  squalor,  had  laid  hands  on  everything,  re- 
vealing itself  in  its  true  colours.  Like  mutilated 
human  faces,  the  fronts  of  houses  hung  in  tatters, 
indecently  displaying  all  those  intimate  secrets  of 
iamily  life  that  the  kindly  walls  had  hidden.  Shells 
Ihad  fallen;  bombs  had  been  dropped.  Even  as  we 
entered,  we  could  hear  the  angry  roar  of  detonations. 
Dead  men  sprawled  about  the  streets,  twisted  by 
the  anguish  of  their  final  struggle.  Dogs  and  cats, 
of  appalling  leanness,  slunk  in  and  out  the  ruins. 
As  we  passed  the  station,  with  its  great  span  of 
girders,  a  shell  crashed  through  with  a  splash  of 
glass.  It  was  a  city  through  which  demented  solitude 
wandered.  We  hurried  on.  An  ambulance  lurched 
by  us,  returning  from  the  Front,  and  halted  by  an 
emergency  hospital.  We  had  a  glimpse  of  the 
stretchers  being  carried  underground  into  the  tem- 
porary security  of  the  cellars.  Overhead  the  fierce 
rat-a-tat  of  machine-guns  commenced,  where  two 
fighting-planes  circled  in  mid-air.  Someone  shouted 
to  us  to  put  out  our  cigarettes;  after  that  there  was 
no  smoking. 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET         151 

Danger  is  like  strong  wine;  it  drives  out  weari- 
ness. While  our  lives  were  secure,  those  long  night- 
marches  had  seemed  an  intolerable  hardship.  Now 
that  death  was  present,  the  entire  manhood  in  us 
stiffened  to  fight  off  the  peril.  Mere  weariness  was 
forgotten  —  a  good  night's  rest  could  cure  that;  but 
if  once  death  should  get  the  upper-hand,  there  was 
no  kindliness  of  human  skill  that  could  restore  us. 
Our  spirits  rose  as  we  drew  nearer  to  the  horror  of 
the  carnage.  There  is  something  wonderfully  stim- 
ulating about  terror;  the  challenge  of  it  makes  one 
forget  his  body.  That  night  as  we  sped  through 
Amiens  and  during  all  the  days  and  nights  that 
followed,  it  seemed  more  as  if  we  were  hunting  death 
than  as  if  death  were  hounding  us. 

We  had  left  the  Cathedral  far  behind.  Whenever 
we  looked  back,  so  long  as  any  light  was  in  the  sky, 
we  could  see  it  standing  dark  and  brooding  against 
the  horizon.  We  had  by  now  travelled  off  the  maps 
in  our  possession,  by  means  of  which  we  had  been 
following  our  journey.  The  Colonel,  seated  beside 
the  driver  of  the  leading  lorry,  gave  him  his  direc- 
tions. He  alone  was  aware  of  where  we  were  going. 
But  we  knew  by  the  wholesale  demolition  that  this 
was  one  of  the  main  national  roads  which  had  been 
most  fiercely  contested  in  the  spring  fighting,  before 
the  headlong  rush  of  the  Hun  had  been  stopped. 
The  tracks  of  the  railroad,  which  paralleled  it,  had 
been  torn  from  their  bed.  Bridges  had  been  blown 
up.  Improvised  forts  had  been  constructed  in 
hollows  where  an  advance  could  be  checked  by 
machine-gun  fire. 


i52         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

In  my  memory  vivid  descriptions  recurred  of  the 
stubborn  resistance  which  our  men  had  put  up. 
They  had  retreated  and  retreated,  overpowered  by 
weight  of  numbers.  They  had  been  deprived  of 
water  and  food  and  sleep,  and  still  they  had  fought 
on.  Their  officers  had  been  killed;  their  N.  C.  O.s 
were  gone;  they  had  lost  touch  with  their  units,  and 
yet  they  had  never  lost  their  sense  of  conquest  — 
they  dug  their  toes  in  and  fought  on.  Along  this 
very  road  they  had  crawled  on  hands  and  knees 
when  they  could  no  longer  walk;  but  they  had 
crawled  backwards,  with  their  faces  always  towards 
the  enemy,  who  followed  them  staggering  drunkenly 
in  his  steps  from  exhaustion.  There  were  German 
battalions  which  had  marched  forty  miles  at  a 
stretch,  only  to  be  shot  down  by  these  broken 
Tommies  who  never  knew  when  they  were  beaten. 
As  the  agony  of  the  spring  became  more  and  more 
obvious  a  cold  anger  grew  in  our  hearts.  We  were 
going  to  revenge  that  mud-stained  mob  who  ought 
to  have  been  beaten,  but  had  won  by  their  own  in- 
vincible doggedness.  From  graves  in  the  darkness 
the  anonymous  dead  watched  us  pass. 

We  were  travelling  more  slowly  now;  the  road 
was  becoming  congested  with  transport  and  with 
batteries  pulling  into  action.  From  lanes  and  cross- 
country routes  which  avoided  Amiens,  they  began  to 
pour  into  this  main  artery  of  traffic.  Fully  two- 
thirds  of  the  transport  consisted  of  motor-lorries, 
bringing  up  ammunition  to  the  various  dumps 
which  were  being  established  in  rear  of  the  point 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET         153 

where  the  blow  was  to  be  struck.  We  crept  along 
without  lights  of  any  kind,  speaking  to  each  other  in 
whispers  lest  the  Hun  should  become  aware  of  the 
commotion  of  our  progress.  By  day  all  this  country 
had  appeared  to  be  naked  and  nothing  had  been 
seen  to  stir.  The  moment  night  had  gathered  every 
road  and  lane  had  become  as  dense  with  traffic  as 
Piccadilly  Circus  at  the  theatre  hour.  One  won- 
dered where  so  much  energy  had  concealed  itself, 
and  marvelled  at  the  army  organization  which  knew 
to  within  a  hundred  yards  where  each  separate  group 
of  energy  could  be  found.  Behind  these  specula- 
tions and  imaginings  lay  a  graver  thought  —  the 
thought  of  all  the  men,  horses  and  engines  of  war 
which  had  been  pouring  eastward  for  four  years, 
only  to  dash  themselves  to  pulp  and  blood,  and  to 
sink  from  sight  in  the  debatable  quagmire  which 
separates  the  hostile  armies.  Where  had  so  many 
come  from?  How  much  longer  could  the  stream  be 
kept  flowing?  Above  our  heads,  like  invisible  trains 
slowing  down  as  they  neared  their  destination,  the 
long  range  shells  of  the  Huns  roared  and  lumbered, 
and  almost  halted  before  they  plunged  screaming 
among  the  sullen  roofs  of  Amiens. 

During  the  last  part  of  the  journey  I  nodded.  It 
was  midnight  when  I  was  awakened  by  the  stir  of 
my  companions  climbing  out.  "We're  here,"  some- 
one said.  Where  here  was  none  of  us  knew;  for  the 
time  being  we  were  too  sleepy  to  care.  Everything 
was  in  total  darkness;  it  was  impossible  to  see  more 
than  a  yard  ahead.  The  air  was  stealthy  with  the 


154        THE    TEST    OF   SCARLET 

muffled  breathing  of  an  immense  crowd.  You  held 
out  your  hand  to  guide  yourself  and  found  it  touch- 
ing the  leg  of  a  mounted  man.  Then,  as  our  eyes 
became  accustomed  to  the  blackness,  we  found  that 
we  were  in  a  village  street,  packed  with  two  streams 
of  traffic,  the  one  going  up  to  the  Front  loaded,  the 
other  returning  empty.  We  listened  to  the  whis- 
pered orders  —  some  were  in  English,  but  many 
were  in  French.  So  the  French  were  going  to  be 
behind  us! 

Not  a  light  was  to  be  seen  anywhere.  Someone 
struck  a  match  to  start  a  cigarette;  immediately, 
almost  before  the  flame  had  burst,  came  the  angry 
order,  "Put  that  light  out."  The  windows  of  the 
houses  were  all  dead;  but  if  one  pressed  against 
them,  he  could  hear  voices  and  knew  that  behind 
the  heavy  curtains  drawn  across  them  men  bent 
over  tables  and  worked  beneath  shaded  lamps.  Car- 
rying our  blankets  and  rations,  we  wormed  our 
way  in  single  file  through  the  traffic,  entered  a  court- 
yard and  found  ourselves  in  a  partially  destroyed 
house.  There  were  two  rooms,  mildewed  with  damp, 
bare  of  furniture  and  littered  with  the  debris  of  the 
last  soldiers  who  had  been  billeted  there.  By  the 
broken  equipment  that  they  had  left,  we  knew  that 
they  had  been  French. 

After  waiting  for  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour  we 
were  joined  by  the  Colonel,  who  brought  with  him 
an  armful  of  maps.  We  wedged  up  the  windows 
with  sacking  and  then  lit  a  candle. 

"Everyone  will  know  by  tomorrow,"  he  said,  "so 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET         155 

I  may  as  well  tell  you  now.  We're  going  to  pull  off 
the  stunt  for  which  we've  been  training  all  summer. 
We  believe  that  we've  got  the  Hun  guessing;  he 
doesn't  know  where  we  are.  By  marching  only  at 
night  and  camping  in  woods  by  day,  we've  thrown 
him  off  our  track.  He  knows  that  something  is 
going  to  be  pulled  off  and  he's  restless;  but  he 
doesn't  suspect  us  in  this  part  of  the  line  — he's 
looking  for  us  further  north.  That  he  is  still  kept 
in  ignorance  must  be  the  aim  of  every  man  and 
officer.  Success  depends  on  it.  Our  job  is  just  this. 
On  August  8th  at  dawn  we  attack.  That  gives  us 
three  days  to  make  all  our  preparations.  The  work 
of  building  the  gun-platforms  and  stocking  the  posi- 
tions with  ammunition  must  be  carried  on  only  by 
night.  By  day  everything  must  be  quiet  —  any  un- 
usual movement  would  give  away  all  our  plans.  The 
enemy  has  the  high  ground;  he  can  look  directly 
down  on'  us.  We're  taking  over  from  the  French, 
so  if  the  enemy  sees  khaki  uniforms  in  this  part  of 
the  line  instead  of  blue-gray,  he'll  know  at  once 
what  to  expect.  We  shan't  drag  our  guns  into  posi- 
tion until  the  night  before  the  show  commences. 
We  shan't  register  them  —  we  shall  get  them  on  for 
line  with  instruments;  so  the  first  shot  we  fire  will 
be  in  the  attack  and  the  first  knowledge  he  has  that 
there's  a  concentration  of  artillery  in  this  area  will 
be  at  the  identical  moment  when  our  infantry  are 
advancing  behind  the  tanks.  By  that  time  he'll 
know  too  late;  we  shall  have  captured  his  defences. 
There's  only  one  other  thing  I  want  to  say  before  we 


get  to  work  on  details:  the  positions  which  have 
been  allotted  to  us  are  so  exposed  that  he  can  look 
almost  down  the  muzzles  of  our  guns.  Any  tracks 
made  on  the  turf  will  give  us  away;  even  if  they've 
escaped  his  observers,  they'll  show  up  on  his  aero- 
plane photographs.  You  must  camouflage  your  am- 
munition with  the  greatest  care,  making  use  of 
natural  camouflage  to  the  greatest  extent,  such  as 
ditches,  wheat-fields  and  the  shadows  of  trees.  If 
once  your  positions  are  discovered,  they'll  become 
murder  holes  for  everyone  concerned.  And  now  for 
the  positions  themselves ;  in  less  than  three  hours  we 
go  forward  to  inspect  them.  I  want  each  of  you  to 
choose  one  main  position  and  an  alternative  one 
which  you  can  take  up  in  case  you're  shelled  out  of 
the  first.  When  you've  settled  upon  your  positions 
I  want  you  to  reconnoitre  every  possible  route  in 
...  It's  nearly  one  now;  we  shall  have  to  leave 
here  in  two  hours.  We've  got  to  do  all  our  work 
between  dawn  and  when  the  morning  mist  rises. 
Meanwhile  here's  a  map  apiece,  which  I  should  ad- 
vise you  to  study,  so  that  you  may  have  some  idea 
of  the  country.  You'll  have  to  carry  the  idea  in 
your  heads;  no  flash-lamps  will  be  allowed.  Our 
brigade  is  going  to  sit  astride  the  road  which  runs 
along  the  ridge  from  the  Gentelles  Woods  to  Domart. 
The  general  plan  of  strategy  is  to  take  the  Hun 
by  surprise  and  tumble  him  back  —  and  so  save 
Amiens.  After  that  our  game  is  to  sail  out  into  the 
blue  and  penetrate  as  far  as  we  can." 

"To  sail  out  into  the  blue  and  penetrate  as  jar  as 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         157 

we  can."  As  long  as  the  war  has  been  going  we 
have  dreamt  of  that.  Out  in  the  blue  one  takes  a 
sporting  chance  and,  if  the  worst  happens,  goes  west 
in  clean  fields  and  beneath  an  open  sky.  In  the 
trenches  one  dies  like  a  trapped  rat,  amid  filth  and 
corruption,  nailed  beneath  a  barrage.  In  the 
trenches  men  are  so  crowded  that  they  lose  their 
personalities;  they  kill  and  are  killed  in  the  mass. 
Out  in  the  blue  it's  a  man  to  man  fight,  in  which  in- 
dividual cunning  and  valour  count.  Long  after  the 
Colonel  had  left  us  and  the  candle  had  been  blown 
out,  we  lay  in  our  blankets  and  whispered  of  what 
"into  the  blue"  might  bring  to  us  in  the  way  of 
adventures. 

By  three  o'clock  we  were  on  the  road,  shivering 
in  the  raw  night  air.  The  traffic  was  all  going  in  one 
direction  now  and  consisted  for  the  most  part  of 
ammunition-limbers  returning  empty  to  their  wagon- 
lines.  About  a  mile  out  of  the  village  we  swung  off 
to  the  left,  travelling  across  country  to  where  the 
eastern  point  of  the  Gentelles  Woods  showed  shad- 
owy against  the  sky.  The  going  was  rough  and  the 
night  so  black  that  it  was  difficult  to  see  where  one's 
feet  were  treading.  Several  times  we  blundered 
into  wire  and  stumbled  into  partly  filled  trenches. 
We  had  no  one  who  had  been  over  the  ground  to 
guide  us,  so  had  to  rely  for  our  direction  on  our 
memories  of  the  maps.  At  the  Gentelles  Woods  we 
struck  the  high  road,  which  runs  along  the  ridge 
between  pollarded  trees  straight  down  to  Domart 
and  the  Hun  Front-line. 


158        THE    TEST    OF   SCARLET 

The  sheer  audacity  of  the  offensive,  as  planned, 
took  away  our  breath  when  we  saw  the  nature  of  the 
landscape.  It  was  a  great  plateau,  lacking  in  any 
cover  and  scored  by  deep  ravines  to  right  and  left; 
every  inch  of  it  was  commanded  by  the  enemy's 
higher  ground.  The  road  along  the  ridge  was  a  di- 
rect enfilade  for  the  enemy;  the  air  was  heavy  with 
decaying  flesh  and  the  sickening  smell  of  explosives. 
It  ran  level  for  fifteen  hundred  yards,  then  it  began 
to  dip  down  to  Pcmart,  which  lay  in  a  valley  which 
crossed  the  roav  ~.  right  angles.  The  near  side  of 
the  valley  was  in  our  hands;  the  far  side,  which 
rose  to  a  much  greater  height,  was  in  the  enemy's. 
To  attempt  to  bring  artillery  into  that  area,  espe- 
cially when  all  the  work  had  to  be  carried  on  by 
night,  and  to  expect  to  be  able  to  do  it  unobserved, 
seemed  madness. 

Shells  were  coming  over  far  too  frequently  for 
comfort;  the  enemy  was  searching  and  sweeping 
the  Gentelles  Woods,  so  we  set  out  at  a  smart  walk 
along  the  ridge  in  a  south-easterly  direction. 


X 

ONE  by  one  our  party  left  us,  turning  off  along 
side-roads  to  search  for  the  particular  map- 
locations  which  had  been  suggested  as  positions  for 
their  batteries.  At  last  only  I  and  one  other  officer, 
named  Strong,  remained  together.  The  spot  for 
which  we  were  looking  was  an  orchard  to  the  right 
of  the  road  along  the  ridge  which  we  were  travelling. 
We  walked  on  and  on.  It  seemed  an  inter- 
minable distance.  A  fine  rain  began  to  descend, 
which  had  the  effect  of  mist,  blurring  the  few  land- 
marks which  one  could  still  identify  as  though  a 
muslin  curtain  had  been  drawn  across  them.  Every 
now  and  then  the  humpy  figure  of  a  man  with  a 
ground-sheet  flung  over  his  rifle  and  shoulders, 
would  loom  up  out  of  the  dark  and  pass  us.  It 
seemed  as  though  he  was  always  the  same  man, 
working  like  a  beast  of  prey  round  and  round  us  in 
circles,  waiting  for  us  to  drop.  We  spoke  to  him 
several  times,  but  he  never  deigned  to  answer.  Men 
rarely  answer  when  they  are  spoken  to  on  the  road 
up  front  at  night.  Whether  it  is  that  they  enjoy 
the  luxury  which  darkness  affords  them  of  not 
recognising  authority,  or  that  the  sullenness  of 
night  has  entered  into  their  souls,  or  that  they  are 
afraid  of  being  delayed  one  extra  minute  from  the 
much  needed  sleep  which  awaits  them  in  some 

159 


160         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

wretched  kennel,  I  do  not  know.  But  the  effect  of 
this  silence  on  anyone  who  is  travelling  a  country 
with  which  he  is  unfamiliar,  is  to  arouse  the  sus- 
picion that  he  may,  unwittingly,  have  gone  too  far 
and  have  wandered  behind  the  enemy's  line.  This 
has  happened  quite  often.  Many  an  officer  has 
started  out  on  a  night  reconnaissance  and  disap- 
peared as  completely  as  if  the  ground  had  swallowed 
him  up.  In  some  cases  the  next  news  has  been 
from  a  prisoners'  camp  in  Germany.  In  others  a 
spy  has  been  captured  wearing  his  uniform;  the 
presumption  has  been  that  he  was  murdered  by  a 
Hun  agent  on  our  side  of  the  line  and  that  his  body 
has  been  tossed  into  some  lonely  shell-hole.  On  ac- 
count of  this  danger  no  man  or  officer  is  allowed  to 
go  unaccompanied  within  two  miles  of  the  Front  — 
a  rule  which  is  invariably  broken. 

We  had  walked  so  far  that  we  had  begun  to  think 
that  we  had  passed  our  orchard,  when  quite  sud- 
denly we  stumbled  across  it.  It  consisted  of  about 
a  hundred  trees.  The  first  position  lay  behind  the 
orchard  in  a  wheat-field;  the  second  in  front,  strung 
out  along  a  dyke,  with  the  whole  of  the  Hun  country 
staring  at  it.  From  every  theoretical  point  of  view 
the  first  position  was  the  better,  as  the  trees  afforded 
it  a  certain  amount  of  cover;  on  the  other  hand  it 
had  the  disadvantage  of  being  too  obviously  a  good 
gun-position.  If  the  Hun  were  to  study  his  map  for 
a  likely  place  to  shell  a  battery,  he  would  be  sure 
to  pick  on  the  rear  of  the  orchard.  The  position 
was  too  ideal  to  be  safe.  Experience  has  proved 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         161 

that  a  bad  position  is  often  more  healthy  in  the  long 
run.  It  can  be  so  damned  bad  that  it's  almost  good. 
The  enemy  would  scarcely  believe  that  any  battery- 
commander  would  be  fool  enough  to  select  it.  An- 
other disadvantage  of  the  first  position  was  that  the 
wheat,  while  it  would  hide  the  guns,  might  easily  be 
set  on  fire  and  be  converted  from  a  protection  into 
a  trap. 

Strong  and  I  tossed  for  the  choice;  when  I  won, 
rather  to  his  amazement  I  chose  the  bad  position  in 
front  of  the  orchard.  How  bad  it  was  I  had  not 
realized  till  the  dawn  began  to  rise.  Then  I  dis- 
covered that  the  muzzles  of  our  guns  would  poke 
out  straight  across  the  valley.  The  road,  from  the 
Gentelles  Woods  to.Domart,  skirted  the  left  of  the 
position,  dipped  down  into  the  valley  across  No 
Man's  Land  and  climbed  the  further  slope  by  a  mass 
of  trees,  marked  on  the  map  as  Dodo  Wood.  From 
Dodo  Wood  the  enemy  could  have  watched  a  cat 
washing  itself  on  the  ground  where  our  guns  were  to 
come  into  action.  One  false  step  and  the  entire  po- 
sition could  be  wiped  out.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we 
could  contrive  to  lie  doggo  until  the  show  com- 
menced, the  smoke  of  battle  would  confuse  an 
enemy  observer,  so  that  he  would  be  likely  to  mis- 
take our  flash  for  the  flash  of  the  battery  in  the 
wheatfield  behind  the  orchard  —  in  which  case  it 
would  be  they  and  not  we  who  would  be  knocked 
out.  That  was  the  gamble  one  had  to  take.  If  one 
guessed  wrong,  he  brought  down  death  on  most  of 
his  chaps. 


162         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

As  day  commenced  to  whiten,  it  became  unwise  to 
hang  about  in  so  exposed  a  place.  All  the  transport 
that  had  creaked  and  thundered  through  the  night, 
had  vanished  from  sight  and  sound  for  over  an  hour. 
Under  the  sickly  pallor  which  was  spreading  through 
the  sky,  the  landscape  looked  afraid  and  haggard. 
One  saw  now  for  the  first  time  how  horribly  it  had 
been  battered.  Not  a  tree  on  the  road  along  the 
ridge  had  escaped;  they  tottered  like  old  prize- 
fighters too  proud  to  run  away,  with  their  arms 
drooping  by  their  sides,  waiting  for  the  knock-out 
blow  to  fell  them. 

The  rain  had  ceased,  the  smell  of  death  was  in  the 
air.  The  ground  seemed  soaked  with  men  who  had 
died.  Mingled  with  this  smell  was  the  sickly  sweet- 
ness of  gas  and  the  suffocating  fumes  of  explosives. 
The  blanket  of  mist  which  had  made  us  safe,  was 
breaking  up  and  drifting  away  in  little  ghostly 
clouds.  It  was  the  hour  when  the  gunners  on  either 
side  of  No  Man's  Land  stand  down  on  their 
harassing  fire  and  wait  breathlessly  for  the  S.  O.  S. 
which  betokens  an  attack.  When  that  comes,  they 
open  up  at  an  intense  rate  of  fire,  four  rounds  per 
gun  per  minute.  To  be  caught  in  such  a  hail-storm 
of  destruction  is  not  pleasant,  and  especially  un- 
pleasant when  you  know  that  you  are  serving  no 
good  purpose  by  your  presence.  We  gazed  behind 
us  at  the  Gentelles  Woods;  the  shells  had  ceased  to 
burst  and  all  was  quiet.  "  Let's  make  our  get-away 
while  the  going  is  good,"  Strong  said. 

Crouching  and  running  low  along  the  ground,  we 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        163 

scrambled  through  the  orchard  and  plunged  into  the 
wheat-field.  In  order  that  we  might  reconnoitre  a 
new  route  of  approach  to  the  positions,  we  struck  off 
to  the  left,  entering  a  ravine  which  led  down  to  a 
lower  road  which  paralleled  the  shell-torn  highway 
along  the  ridge.  From  a  distance  the  ravine  looked 
wild  and  forsaken;  not  a  plume  of  smoke  rose; 
nothing  stirred.  As  we  walked  down  it,  we  dis- 
covered that  what  we  had  mistaken  for  rocks  and 
patches  of  brush,  were  actually  carefully  camou- 
flaged ammunition-dumps  and  battery  positions. 
Not  only  this  ravine,  but  every  hill  and  slope  was 
stiff  with  guns  of  every  calibre,  lying  masked  and 
silent,  waiting  for  the  great  hour  to  strike  when  they 
would  blow  the  Hun  out  of  his  strongholds.  In 
rabbit-warrens  dug  far  down  beneath  the  surface, 
the  French  artillery-men  bided  their  time.  Some  of 
them  peeped  out  to  watch  us  pass,  with  eyes  un- 
interested and  fatalistic. 

Our  idea  of  the  scope  of  the  attack  which  was 
planned  grew  as  we  investigated  further.  We  also 
began  to  get  a  picture  of  what  these  preparations 
had  already  cost  in  lives.  Horses  and  men  lay 
strewn  about  in  every  stage  of  decomposition.  Some 
had  only  been  dead  for  hours;  others  were  the 
skeletons  of  those  who  had  fallen  hi  the  fierce 
counter-drive,  which  had  halted  the  Huns'  rush 
towards  Amiens.  One  wondered  how  that  rush  had 
ever  been  halted  and,  when  it  had  been  halted,  how 
the  line  had  been  held.  Every  bit  of  high  ground  in 
our  hands  was  over-topped  by  a  higher  point  in  the 


164        THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

hands  of  the  enemy.  From  all  directions  on  the 
eastern  horizon,  from  woods  and  coppices  in  a  great 
semi-circle,  the  Hun  gazed  down;  it  was  impossible 
to  avoid  his  eyes.  Every  now  and  then  a  scurry  of 
bullets  or  a  whizz-bang  bursting  near  us  would  re- 
mind us  of  this  fact,  and  we  would  flatten  ourselves. 

It  took  us  two  hours  to  regain  the  town  from 
which  we  had  started  where,  by  pre-arrangement, 
we  were  to  make  our  reports  to  the  Colonel.  From 
him  we  learnt  that  our  batteries  had  marched  in 
during  the  night  and  had  set  up  their  horse-lines  in 
the  Boves  Woods.  That  these  woods  should  have 
been  chosen  for  our  camp  was  the  crowning  stroke 
of  audacity;  how  audacious  we  did  not  realise  until 
we  saw  the  camp  itself. 

All  the  woods  of  this  district  are  on  hill-tops,  the 
slopes  of  the  valleys  and  the  valleys  themselves 
being  cleared  for  agriculture;  it  is  therefore  a  very 
difficult  country  in  which  to  hide  from  the  planes  of 
the  enemy.  Infantry  can  keep  out  of  sight  in  the 
villages  and  towns,  taking  their  chances  of  shell-fire 
and  digging  themselves  in  beneath  the  houses.  But 
the  horse-lines  of  mounted  troops  are  unmistakable 
when  seen  from  the  air,  and  almost  impossible  to 
disguise.  To  take  to  the  woods  was  our  only  choice. 
The  enemy  was  aware  of  this;  he  bombed  every 
cluster  of  trees  as  soon  as  night  had  fallen,  and 
raked  them  both  day  and  night  with  shell-fire. 

The  Boves  Woods  lay  behind  the  town.  To  reach 
them  it  was  necessary  to  climb  a  bald  ascent  of 
chalk,  almost  incandescently  white,  and  to  cross  a 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET         165 

plateau  which  was  as  open  and  conspicuous  as  a 
parade-ground.  In  the  old  days  of  hand-to-hand 
fighting  and  cavalry  charges  the  height  must  have 
been  well-nigh  impregnable.  In  general  formation 
it  was  not  unlike  the  Heights  of  Abraham,  even  to 
having  a  river  for  its  defence,  which  wound  about 
its  foot.  The  ascent,  the  plateau  and  the  woods 
were  full  in  sight  of  the  enemy  on  their  eastward 
side.  To  select  such  a  landmark  for  one's  horse- 
lines  was  the  last  word  in  foolhardiness.  A  water- 
cart  wandering  out  on  to  the  plateau  in  full  daylight 
would  have  given  the  secret  away.  Had  the  enemy 
once  started  shelling,  he  would  have  discovered  all 
that  was  necessary  to  make  public  the  attack.  The 
night-marches,  the  decoys  sent  up  to  Ypres,  the 
whole  web  of  strategy,  the  object  of  which  was  to 
make  him  muster  his  reserves  opposite  to  the  most 
remote  part  of  the  line,  would  all  have  proved  use- 
less. In  choosing  the  Boves  Woods  as  our  place  of 
hiding  we  were  staking  our  own  foolishness  against 
the  enemy's  common-sense;  he  would  never  credit  us 
with  being  so  reckless.  We  were  attempting  to 
defeat  his  cleverness  by  our  own  seeming  stupidity. 
Our  chance  of  getting  away  with  such  a  trick  was 
one  in  a  thousand.  In  the  choice  of  our  gun- 
positions  and  in  all  that  we  were  attempting,  it  was 
on  the  thousandth  chance  that  we  were  gambling. 

On  leaving  the  Colonel,  since  it  was  daylight,  we 
had  to  work  our  way  round  the  hill  and  approach 
our  camp  from  the  westward  slope.  We  found  that 
the  town  had  been  badly  hammered,  and  except  for 


i66        THE    TEST   OF   SCARLET 

the  troops  who  hid  like  rats  beneath  the  fallen  roofs, 
was  entirely  deserted.  We  found  also  that  a  river 
which  wandered  through  it,  cut  it  in  two,  and  was 
crossed  by  a  single  bridge,  which  was  quite  incapable 
of  taking  all  the  traffic.  This  bridge  had  to  be 
shared  by  both  ourselves  and  the  French,  and  had 
evidently  been  responsible  for  the  delays  and  con- 
gestions which  we  had  noticed  on  the  night  of  our 
arrival.  One  wondered  what  would  happen  if  the 
attack  failed,  and  a  retreat  became  necessary.  How 
could  we  get  the  guns  away  across  a  single  bridge 
which  the  enemy  would  certainly  keep  under  fire? 
It  was  plain  that  failure  and  retreat  had  not  entered 
into  the  vision  of  our  present  strategy.  It  was  neck 
or  nothing.  We  were  staking  our  all  on  success. 

At  the  entrance  to  the  woods  Strong  and  I  parted 
company  and  went  in  search  of  our  respective  bat- 
teries. The  undergrowth  was  drenched  and  had 
been  trampled  into  boggy  lanes  where  the  horses  had 
been  led  down  to  water.  Everything  was  dark  and 
dank.  The  overhead  foliage  was  so  dense  that 
heat  and  light  never  permeated.  A  cathedral  dusk 
and  chill  mounted  from  the  roots  of  the  trees  to  the 
topmost  branches.  Distantly,  at  the  end  of  the  long 
aisles  of  trunks,  the  day  shone  like  stained-glass 
windows. 

I  had  to  hunt  for  some  time  before  I  found  my 
unit.  The  place  was  packed  with  weary  horses  and 
sleeping  men.  At  last  I  came  across  them,  the  horses 
tethered  to  ropes  stretched  between  the  wheels  of 
the  limbers,  and  the  men  rolled  in  blankets,  mud- 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        167 

splashed  and  motionless.  Everything  was  so  still 
that  I  might  have  stumbled  across  a  refuge  of  the 
dead.  There  were  no  fires  burning;  without  being 
told,  I  knew  that  fires  were  not  allowed.  We  might 
be  storm-troops,  but  we  looked  neither  triumphant 
nor  terrible.  .  .  .  Beneath  a  stretch  of  canvas  I 
espied  my  sleeping-sack.  Without  more  ado,  re- 
moving my  boots  and  tunic,  I  tumbled  into  bed.  My 
last  conscious  thought  was  of  the  gun-position,  with 
Dodo  Wood  glaring  down  at  it.  Would  it  have  been 
better  to  have  chosen  the  other  position  behind  the 
orchard? 


XI 

THIS  is  the  last  day;  to-morrow  at  dawn  we 
attack.  We  are  still  lying  hidden  in  the 
Boves  Woods;  though  other  woods  to  the  rear  of  us 
have  been  bombed  and  harassed,  no  shell  has  fallen 
here  as  yet.  The  enemy  doubtless  watches  this 
wood  for  the  flash  of  the  guns  and,  having  seen 
none,  has  not  thought  it  worth  his  while  to  waste 
ammunition  upon  it.  Our  foolhardiness  in  camping 
directly  under  his  eyes  has  certainly  paid  us,  for 
there  is  scarcely  any  other  place  where  we  would 
not  have  suffered  casualties. 

It's  afternoon;  beyond  the  dim  cavernous  shadow 
of  these  trees  the  hot  August  sun  is  shining.  The 
white  chalky  hills  gleam  molten  and  dazzle  one's 
eyes  with  their  glare.  The  valleys,  which  spread 
away  for  miles  below  us,  float  tethered  in  the  hazy 
air.  Everything  looks  tranquil  and  dreamlike;  it 
is  difficult  to  believe  in  our  own  reality  and  in  the 
reality  of  our  monstrous  purpose.  Surely  we  shall 
wake  up  to  find  ourselves  safe  at  home  and  to  laugh 
at  our  fantastic  imagining  that  we  are  soldiers.  Yet 
within  a  handful  of  hours  all  this  peacefulness  will 
vanish;  the  mask  of  summer  quiet  will  be  torn 
aside  and  every  ridge  and  rock  will  belch  fire  and 
destruction.  The  French  have  dragged  their  guns 
into  the  most  daringly  inaccessible  places;  there  they 

168 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         169 

lie  basking  in  the  fragrance  of  wild  thyme  with  all 
the  world  below  them,  their  muzzles  pointed  towards 
the  stolen  country,  waiting  for  the  hour  of  reckon- 
ing to  strike. 

Our  men  were  advised  to  rest  this  afternoon  and 
to  get  as  much  sleep  as  possible;  but  already  the 
fever  of  excitement  is  in  their  blood.  Many  of 
them  have  gone  down  behind  the  hill  to  bathe  and 
are  washing  their  clothes  in  the  river.  One  of  the 
amazing  spectacles  of  our  place  of  hiding  is  the 
impassive  aspect  of  the  eastern  slope  as  compared 
with  the  stirring  life  which  goes  on  on  its  western 
side. 

All  our  preparations  are  completed;  there  is  noth- 
ing more  that  can  be  done  until  darkness  has 
gathered.  It  was  on  the  morning  of  August  5th 
that  the  battery  marched  into  those  woods.  The 
following  night  was  spent  in  carrying  up  ammuni- 
tion and  sand-bags  to  the  gun-position.  We  hid 
them  in  ditches  on  either  side  of  the  Gentelles- 
Domart  Road  and  beneath  the  trees  of  the  orchard. 
Last  night  we  completed  the  stocking  of  the  position 
with  ammunition  and  dragged  in  the  guns.  The 
guns  we  also  hid  in  the  orchard,  covering  them  with 
branches  to  break  up  their  outline,  so  that  they 
might  not  arouse  suspicion  in  the  mind  of  the 
enemy.  The  work  was  very  exhausting  and  slow  on 
account  of  the  congestion  of  the  traffic.  The  re- 
turn from  the  Derby  was  nothing  to  it.  It  was  like 
being  caught  in  the  procession  of  the  Lord  Mayor's 
Show.  In  the  case  of  a  break-down  in  front,  it  was 


iyo        THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

impossible  to  swing  out  and  get  forward.  Men 
stood  elbow  to  elbow  and  vehicles  hub  to  hub.  Lim- 
bers and  led  animals  were  packed  solid,  the  one 
stream  moving  up  and  the  other  returning.  In  order 
to  get  the  work  done  every  horse  and  man  had  to 
make  at  least  two  journeys.  The  main  ammunition- 
dumps,  at  which  the  limbers  were  loaded,  were 
from  two  to  three  miles  away;  when  one  had  been 
emptied  another  had  to  be  located  in  the  darkness. 
To  forward-positions,  such  as  ours,  there  are  only 
two  highways  of  approach  —  the  road  along  the 
ridge  and  the  road  along  the  valley;  the  Hun  keeps 
the  ridge-road  continually  under  harassing  fire.  If 
a  team  was  ditched  or  struck,  it  meant  that  every 
battery  for  a  mile  back  was  held  up. 

The  worst  cause  of  delay  was  the  single  bridge 
across  the  river.  Most  of  our  confusion  arose  from 
the  fact  that  the  roads  were  used  by  both  French 
and  British  troops,  and  were  controlled  by  military- 
police  of  both  nations.  If  a  British  Tommy  wished 
to  disobey  a  French  traffic-control,  he  had  ample 
excuse  in  pretending  not  to  understand  his  language. 
The  result  was  that  the  two  streams,  coming  and 
going,  often  got  wedged  and  double-banked.  Every- 
one was  working  under  a  nervous  tension.  His 
own  job  was  all  important  to  him.  It  had  to  be 
accomplished  between  dusk  and  sunrise.  If  he 
failed,  no  matter  what  the  delays,  no  excuse  would 
be  taken  by  superior  officers.  The  consequence  was 
a  wild  hustle  and  scramble,  all  of  which  took  place 
under  the  cover  of  darkness  There  were  only  two 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        171 

nights  in  which  everything  had  to  be  done.  Our 
orders  were  that  on  the  night  previous  to  the  attack, 
which  is  to-night,  the  roads  were  to  be  left  free  from 
wheel-traffic  for  the  infantry  and  the  tanks.  The 
tanks  are  being  brought  in  at  the  last  moment  to 
go  over  the  top  ahead  of  the  attacking  troops  and  to 
trample  down  the  enemy's  defensive  wire.  The 
cutting  of  the  wire  is  usually  done  by  special 
artillery-shoots,  which  of  course  announce  to  the 
enemy  something  boisterous  in  the  near  future.  But 
on  this  occasion  we  are  doing  no  announcing,  so  the 
tanks  have  to  perform  the  task  which  formerly  fell 
to  the  artillery.  Their  job  is  to  plunge  their  noses 
into  our  barrage  and  stamp  a  path  through  all  ob- 
stacles that  would  impede  our  infantry. 

If  one  survives  this  war,  will  it  seem  more  real  in 
retrospect  than  it  does  now?  Now  it  seems  a  wild 
distorted  dream  from  which  we  shall  awake  pres- 
ently. The  memory  of  these  last  two  nights  seem 
the  ramblings  of  a  disordered  mind.  The  very  air 
was  acrid  with  the  sweat  of  men  and  horses  driven 
beyond  their  strength.  You  heard  and  smelt  them 
floundering  in  the  darkness,  but  you  rarely  saw  or 
felt  them.  They  went  by  you  breathing  hard  and 
indistinct  as  shadows.  You  heard  men  swearing  in 
English  and  in  French  —  swearing  as  passionlessly 
and  mechanically  as  one  who  repeats  a  remembered 
prayer,  and  through  all  the  agony  without  inten- 
tional blasphemy  recurred  the  name  of  Christ. 
Above  our  heads  we  could  hear  the  purring  of  hos- 
tile planes.  Every  now  and  then  a  bomb  dropped 


172         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

and  the  earth  rose  up  to  meet  it  flaming  red.  For  a 
moment  the  country  for  miles  round  was  ensan- 
guined and  we  saw  one  another  distinctly,  frightened 
horses  rearing,  riders  in  steel  helmets  crouching  low 
in  their  saddles  and  men  hanging  on  to  the  bridles  to 
hold  the  horses  down.  Then  the  flame  failed,  like  a 
torch  stamped  out,  and  we  heard  nothing  but  sob- 
bing breath.  While  on  the  road  the  fear  was 
always  with  us  that  at  any  minute  our  doings  might 
be  discovered  and  the  enemy  might  open  fire.  If 
he  had,  few  would  have  escaped.  Quite  remarkably 
he  still  seems  totally  ignorant  of  what  is  planned. 
One  would  have  supposed  that  the  roar  of  so  much 
travel,  always  springing  up  at  night  and  dying  down 
with  the  dawn,  would  have  warned  him.  We  can 
hear  it  ourselves,  even  though  we  are  part  of  it. 
It  sounds  like  the  muffled  beat  of  many  drums,  ac- 
companied by  the  shuffling  of  an  immense  crowd. 
It  commences  very  distantly  from  miles  back  as  the 
dusk  begins  to  settle,  and  swells  and  swells  in  volume 
throughout  the  night,  receding  and  finally  dying 
into  silence  as  the  dawn  spreads  and  the  sun  begins 
to  rise.  If  the  enemy  knows  or  suspects,  he  is  wait- 
ing to  catch  us  the  night  before  the  attack  —  to- 
night—  when  with  so  many  men  crowded  into  one 
area  he  can  deluge  us  with  death.  That  may  be  his 
game,  but  according  to  our  information  he  is  still 
puzzled  as  to  our  whereabouts. 

Our  job  to-night  will  be  the  heaviest  we  have 
tackled.  We  set  out  on  foot  as  soon  as  the  day 
begins  to  fail,  taking  with  us  the  gun-crews,  the 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         173 

signallers  and  a  fatigue-party  with  sand-bags,  picks 
and  shovels.  The  work  before  us  consists  of  digging 
gun-platforms  and  throwing  up  some  kind  of  pro- 
tection for  the  gunners,  of  man-handling  the  guns 
into  position  and  getting  them  on  for  line,  and  of 
sorting  out  the  shells  and  carrying  them  to  imme- 
diately in  the  rear  of  the  gun-platforms.  We  have 
not  yet  been  told  the  exact  hour  at  which  the  show 
opens,  but  we  know  that  all  our  preparations  for 
opening  fire  must  be  completed  by  4  A.  M. 

The  inconsideration  which  we  have  to  show  for 
our  men  fills  me  with  shame.  We  have  to  work 
them  as  if  they  were  in  bondage.  If  we  have  to 
treat  them  remorselessly,  we  get  no  better  treatment 
ourselves.  In  the  army  every  man  in  authority  is 
a  slave-driver  and  himself,  in  turn,  a  slave.  The 
more  one  does,  the  more  he  may  do;  in  the  ranks, 
where  the  greatest  sacrifices  are  made,  there  are 
few  rewards  and  precious  little  thanks.  One  smiles 
out  here  when  he  reads  of  strikes  at  home  for 
shorter  hours  and  higher  rates  of  pay.  Our  pay  is 
a  mere  pittance,  which  does  not  pretend  to  be  ap- 
proximately equivalent  to  the  service  rendered.  Our 
hours  are  as  long  as  the  authorities  who  control  our 
destinies  like.  For  the  last  five  nights  our  men  have 
marched  and  worked  incessantly;  during  the  day 
they  have  been  able  to  get  no  proper  rest,  what  with 
the  constant  interruptions  caused  by  stable-parades, 
guard-mountings,  fatigues  and  pickets.  To-night 
will  be  the  sixth  night  that  they  have  gone  without 
sleep;  at  dawn  they  have  to  face  up  to  the  strain 


174        THE    TEST   OF   SCARLET 

of  battle,  showing  coolness,  courage  and  steadiness 
of  nerve.  The  standard  we  demand  of  ordinary 
men  is  too  heroic,  especially  when  we  treat  their 
sufferings  as  of  no  consequence.  And  yet  these 
perfectly  ordinary  men,  bully-ragged  by  discipline, 
disrespected  in  their  persons,  handicapped  by  hard- 
ship and  abused  in  their  strength,  rise  unfailingly  to 
heights  of  nobility  whenever  the  occasion  presents 
itself.  What  is  more,  they  do  it  utterly  uncon- 
sciously, with  the  careless  untheatric  grandeur  of 
original  men.  The  army  and  its  steam-roller  meth- 
ods have  done  much  to  degrade  their  external  ap- 
pearance, but  they  have  not  been  able  to  destroy 
the  secret  glory  which  made  them  willing  to  submit 
to  the  rigors  and  indignities  of  the  scarlet  test.  They 
are  out  here  to  prove  their  manhood.  They  came 
here  to  die  that  the  world  might  be  better.  The 
army  chooses  to  regard  such  courage  as  natural  — 
so  natural  that  it  is  almost  to  be  despised;  but  it 
cannot  make  them  lose  their  elation  and  quiet  glad- 
ness in  their  sacrifice. 

Suzette !     My  thoughts  are  forever  turning 

to  her  —  she  impersonates  the  fineness  for  which  we 
die.  She  moves  among  us  with  her  patient  serving 
hands  and  her  quiet  self-forgetting  kindness.  After 
all,  our  test  —  the  test  which  we  are  called  upon  to 
face  to-morrow  —  is  the  test  which  women  have 
been  facing  without  complaining  throughout  the 
ages,  giving  up  their  bodies  to  be  smashed,  that  by 
the  birth  of  a  new  life  the  world  may  start  afresh. 
The  battle-fields  on  which  her  sisters  have  fallen 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        175 

lie  far  and  wide,  wherever  men  have  trodden  and 
still  tread.  For  her  and  her  sisters  the  test  of 
scarlet  is  never  ended.  Perhaps  it  is  because  of  this 
that  she  follows  us  and  understands. 

It's  time  for  evening-stables;  the  men  are  waking 
up  and  crawling  out  from  the  underbrush  with 
blinking  eyes.  The  chaps  who  are  to  go  forward 
with  us  to  fight  the  guns  are  already  at  the  cook- 
house, getting  their  supper.  They're  laughing  and 
joking  as  if  they  hadn't  a  care.  In  about  an  hour 
we  ought  to  make  a  start.  The  tanks  have  already 
commenced  to  move  up;  from  miles  back  one  can 
hear  the  rumble  of  their  progress. 

Where  shall  we  be  tomorrow?  What  new  march 
shall  we  have  undertaken?  Shall  we  have  broken 
the  line  and  have  sailed  off  into  the  blue,  pursuing 
the  Hun?  Or  shall  we  have  finished  our  last  march 
and  be  lying  very  quietly?  So  long  as  we  break  the 
enemy's  line,  what  happens  to  anyone  of  us  does  not 
matter.  To  lie  very  quietly  would  be  pleasant;  we 
shall  have  earned  a  long,  unbroken  rest. 


BOOK  III 
INTO  THE  BLUE 


IT'S  two  days  since  I  made  my  last  jotting.  How 
much  has  happened  since  then!  Since  then 
we've  smashed  the  Hun  Front,  crumpled  it  up  and 
swept  it  back  for  a  distance  of  fourteen  miles.  It's 
difficult  to  say  whether  there  is  any  Hun  Front  left; 
there's  a  mob  withdrawing  in  tumultuous  retreat 
and  picked  suicide-troops,  fighting  stubborn  rear- 
guard actions. 

To-day  it  is  our  turn  to  sit  down  and  hold  the  line 
in  depth.  The  troops  which  were  behind  us  yester- 
day, have  leap-frogged  us  and  passed  through  us. 
They're  fresh  and  with  their  unspoilt  strength  are 
battering  their  way  still  further  forward,  herding 
the  enemy  into  panic-stricken  groups,  and  cutting 
them  off  from  the  main  body  with  their  tremendous 
weight  of  shells.  Pressing  on  their  heels,  like  police- 
men dispersing  a  riot,  come  the  ponderous  tanks, 
making  no  arrests  and  impersonally  bludgeoning 
every  protest  into  silence. 

How  far  our  chaps  have  penetrated  by  now  we 
cannot  guess,  but  their  guns  sound  very  faintly 
across  the  hazy  summer  distance.  To-morrow  we 
shall  again  hook  in  and  gallop  into  the  point  of  the 
fighting-wedge,  while  the  troops  who  are  up  front 
to-day  will  sit  tight  and  hold.  This  is  war  as  we 
have  always  dreamt  of  it  and  never  hoped  to  find  it. 

179 


i8o         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

At  last  we  have  our  desire:  we  have  leapt  out  of  our 
trenches,  left  the  filth  of  No  Man's  Land  behind, 
and  have  slipped  off  into  the  blue,  where  we  follow 
a  moving  battle  across  plains  and  wheat-fields  to 
the  unravished  lands  of  Germany. 

It's  the  afternoon  of  August  the  ninth.  It  was  on 
the  evening  of  the  seventh  that  we  crept  out  on  foot 
from  the  shadow  of  the  Boves  Woods.  The  roads 
were  packed  with  infantry  and  tanks  moving 
forward  in  a  solid  mass;  this  night  everything  was 
moving  in  the  one  direction  —  there  was  no  return- 
ing traffic.  Hidden  in  the  ravines,  just  back  of  the 
guns,  we  came  across  the  cavalry,  ready  to  advance 
the  moment  a  breach  in  the  line  had  been  an- 
nounced. In  contrast  with  the  nervous  irritation  of 
other  nights,  this  night  there  was  an  uncomplaining 
austerity.  Suspense  was  nearly  at  an  end,  antici- 
pation of  dying  was  soon  to  be  replaced  by  death's 
actual  presence.  The  great  question  in  all  our 
minds  was,  did  the  Hun  know?  Had  he  known  all 
the  time?  Was  he  planning  to  catch  us  and  to  fore- 
stall our  attack  by  an  offensive  of  his  own  before 
morning? 

On  our  arrival  at  the  gun-position  in  front  of  the 
orchard  we  found  that  everything  was  normal  and 
quiet.  The  odd  shell  was  coming  over  and  bursting 
with  its  accustomed  regularity  in  the  accustomed 
places.  The  enemy  had  not  changed  his  targets. 
From  his  Front-line  in  the  valley  below  us,  the 
normal  amount  of  flares  were  going  up.  The 
machine-gun  fire  came  in  irregular  bursts  and  lazily, 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         181 

as  if  the  entire  business  were  a  matter  of  form  and 
not  to  be  taken  too  much  to  heart  by  anybody.  The 
only  noticeable  difference  was  of  our  making.  To 
drown  the  throb  of  our  advancing  tanks,  a  great 
number  of  bombing-planes  had  been  sent  up,  which 
kept  flying  to  and  fro  at  a  low  altitude  above  the 
enemy's  trenches.  This  peaceful  state  of  affairs  was 
too  good  to  last,  so  we  at  once  set  to  work  feverishly 
upon  our  final  preparations.  Not  a  man  slacked  or 
spared  himself;  each  one  knew  that  before  morning 
his  own  life  might  depend  upon  the  honesty  of  his 
effort.  I  don't  think,  however,  it  was  our  own  par- 
ticular lives  that  concerned  us  so  much  as  the  lives 
of  our  pals. 

We  divided  the  men  into  parties,  so  many  to  dig 
the  six  gun-platforms  and  so  many  to  sort  and  stack 
the  ammunition.  Every  hour  or  so  we  changed 
them  over,  so  that  they  might  not  get  stale  at  their 
task.  As  soon  as  the  platforms  were  sufficiently 
advanced,  we  man-handled  the  guns  into  position 
and  gave  them  their  lines.  After  that  we  felt  more 
secure;  if  the  enemy  were  to  anticipate  our  offen- 
sive, we  would  now  be  able  to  reply. 

Time  did  not  permit  of  our  constructing  sufficient 
protection  for  our  men;  besides,  in  so  exposed  a 
position,  we  should  either  escape  by  reason  of  the 
enemy's  panic  or  else  get  wiped  out.  We  threw  up  a 
wall  of  sand-bags  and  turf  about  the  guns  to  save 
their  crews  from  splinters,  and  dug  a  more  or  less 
splinter-proof  hole  in  which  the  signallers  and  the 
Major  could  do  their  work.  In  this  hole,  by  the 


182         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

light  of  a  solitary  candle  we  made  out  the  barrage- 
table  with  the  times,  lifts,  rates  of  fire  and  ammu- 
nition expenditure  for  the  attack,  and  explained  it 
to  the  sergeants  in  charge  of  the  gun-detachments. 
At  3  A.  M.  we  served  the  men  with  hot  tea,  bully 
beef  and  slices  of  bread.  Then  we  sat 'down  to 
await  developments.  Our  attack  was  planned  to 
open  at  4.20,  just  as  the  dawn  would  be  peeping 
above  the  horizon. 

Luckily  for  us  a  heavy  mist  had  risen  up  which, 
as  night  drew  towards  morning,  had  thickened  to  the 
density  of  a  fog.  It  had  the  effect  of  blanketing 
sound.  It  needed  to,  for  as  the  tanks  lumbered 
nearer  to  the  Front-line  to  their  jumping-off  points, 
the  whole  world  seemed  to  shake  with  their  clamour. 
It  was  like  a  city  of  giants  marching  nearer  and 
forever  nearer.  Not  even  the  droning  of  the 
bombing-planes  could  drown  the  ominous  breathing 
of  their  engines  and  the  clangour  of  their  iron  tread. 

Whether  it  was  the  number  and  the  low  altitude  of 
the  planes  or  that  the  Hun  had  actually  heard  the 
unusual  commotion  behind  our  lines,  by  3  A.  M.  he 
became  suspicious.  His  harassing  fire,  which 
usually  dies  down  about  that  hour,  leapt  up  into  a 
novel  intensity.  He  began  to  search  and  sweep  new 
areas,  which  before  had  been  free  from  shell-fire, 
It  was  a  good  thing  that  our  work  was  completed, 
for  we  had  to  throw  ourselves  down  and  hug  the 
ground  to  avoid  the  splinters.  Most  of  his  shells 
went  plus  of  us  and  plunged  into  the  orchard  behind. 
Little  sudden  illuminations  sprang  up  where  piles 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET         183 

of  ammunition  had  been  struck  and  were  burning. 
He  was  evidently  making  guesses  and  consulting  his 
map  for  anything  that  seemed  likely,  for  when  his 
shelling  was  working  most  destruction,  he  would 
switch  to  a  new  target,  where  it  was  wasted.  The 
fog  and  the  night  combined,  entirely  prevented  him 
from  seeing  what  he  was  doing  and  from  observing 
the  tell-tale  conflagrations  he  had  created.  We 
thanked  our  lucky  stars  that  our  position  was  a  bad 
one  and  that  we  weren't  in  the  orchard. 

The  most  nerve-racking  moments  in  any  fight 
are  the  moments  preceding  the  start  of  the  fight. 
One  suddenly  becomes  possessed  of  extraordinary 
lucidity,  somewhat  similar  to  the  clarity  of  thought 
which  is  said  to  be  experienced  by  the  drowning. 
He  reviews  his  entire  life  in  a  flash,  its  failures,  suc- 
cesses, unkindnesses  and  follies.  He  appreciates 
with  ineffectual  poignancy  the  affections  he  has 
wasted  and  the  generosities  he  has  omitted.  It  is  as 
though,,  after  having  walked  through  all  his  years, 
he  unexpectedly  went  aeroplaning  and  saw  below 
him  the  panorama  of  his  chances  and  achievements; 
he  sees  the  might-have-been  high-roads  he  could 
have  taken,  leading  to  white  cities  on  the  hills,  and 
the  crooked  lanes  he  did  actually  choose,  losing 
themselves  in  quagmire.  Most  particularly,  in  the 
moments  of  waiting,  he  thinks  of  children,  because 
they  are  immortality.  He  wishes  with  a  passionate 
regret  that  he  had  foreseen  this  hour,  and  could 
have  left  someone  behind  him  who  would  perpetuate 
his  body  long  after  it  has  been  obliterated  and  de- 


184         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

filed.  All  the  purposes  and  dignities  for  which  he  was 
created  become  miraculously  obvious  to  him  now. 
He  feels  a  dull  resentment  that  this  clearness  of 
vision  was  denied  him  till  the  power  to  choose  was 
beyond  his  choice. 

Sometimes  this  startling  mental  lucidity  takes  the 
form  of  an  unnatural  clairvoyance;  he  acutely  ap- 
prehends happenings  which  are  out  of  all  possible 
reach  of  his  senses.  His  imagination  becomes  ab- 
normally alert.  Lying  beneath  the  weight  of 
darkness,  hanging  over  the  lip  of  the  valley,  divided 
from  the  enemy  by  a  sea  of  fog,  I  saw  with  absolute 
distinctness  the  frenzy  which  was  in  progress  behind 
the  hostile  lines.  I  retain  pictures  which  are  as 
clean-cut  as  if  they  had  been  witnessed.  Nine- 
tenths  of  the  opposing  army  are  sleeping.  The 
sentries  have  been  posted,  the  distress  signals  have 
been  arranged  and  the  batteries  allotted  their 
several  tasks.  At  sunset  everything  seems  serene; 
but  as  night  settles  down  and  the  mist  rises,  an  un- 
accountable uneasiness  oppresses  the  spirits  of  the 
one- tenth  who  watch.  Each  man  feels  it,  but  he 
fears  to  voice  his  alarm  till  he  has  proofs  which 
would  warrant  it.  He  notes  the  unusual  number  of 
planes  in  the  air;  but  they  are  neither  machine- 
gunning  nor  bombing,  and  on  account  of  the  intense 
darkness  they  cannot  spy.  He  may  report  their 
presence  to  headquarters,  but  there  are  no  grounds 
for  being  disturbed  so  long  as  they  are  doing  no 
harm.  Besides,  he  is  no  expert;  he  may  be  mistaken 
as  to  their  numbers.  Then,  little  by  little,  above 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         185 

their  drone  he  hears  another  sound  —  the  sound  as 
of  a  tidal  wave  travelling  towards  him,  growing 
more  menacing  and  taller  as  it  approaches.  He 
peers  into  the  fog  and  imagines  stealthy  figures 
moving.  The  scurrying  of  a  rat  makes  him  break 
into  a  cold  sweat.  He  calls  to  the  next  sentry;  but 
his  voice  will  not  carry.  He  realizes  that  whatever 
happens,  he  is  alone  and  cut  off.  His  flares  and 
rockets,  if  he  fires  them,  will  bring  him  no  assist- 
ance; they  will  be  smothered  by  the  mountainous 
wall  of  whiteness.  Fear  seizes  him,  which  he  can 
no  longer  master;  at  the  same  time  the  same  fear 
seizes  every  other  watcher.  By  telephone  or  runner 
they  each  one  send  back  tidings  of  their  terror. 

But  the  nine-tenths  of  the  enemy  who  are  sleeping 
are  annoyed  at  being  disturbed.  "  It  is  nothing," 
they  declare.  The  news  spreads  slowly  from  bat- 
talion to  brigade,  brigade  to  division,  division  to 
corps,  from  corps  to  army.  Each  headquarters, 
peevish  at  being  aroused  and  hesitant  about  arousing 
its  next  senior  headquarters,  wastes  time  in  checking 
back  to  the  watcher  in  the  front-line  for  confirma- 
tion of  his  doubts.  What  is  it  that  he  fears?  No 
attack  is  to  be  expected;  the  Allies'  storm-troops 
are  up  north.  There  is  positive  evidence  of  that 
fact.  The  worst  that  can  be  looked  for  is  a  local 
raiding-party.  What  are  the  reasons  for  his  panic? 

The  reasons  for  his  panic!  They  are  vague,  in- 
definite; he  has  no  reasons  — only  intuitions, 
doubts,  conjectures.  He  knows  that  the  night  is 
black  and  that  he  is  filled  with  a  horrible  foreboding. 


186        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

There  are  too  many  men  over  there  across  No  Man's 
Land.  He  cannot  prove  it,  but  he  can  feel  their 
bated  breath. 

Reluctantly  the  nine-tenths  of  the  army  who  were 
sleeping,  are  awakened.  They  lie  listening  in  their 
deep  dug-outs,  unwilling  to  believe  that  calamity 
threatens.  Then  suddenly,  when  it  is  too  late  to  be 
prepared,  the  suspicion  strengthens  that  a  major 
offensive  will  open  with  the  morning.  There  is  only 
an  hour  till  dawn  —  too  little  time  to  act.  The  in- 
fantry are  ordered  to  stand  to  in  the  trenches  and 
the  batteries  to  increase  their  rate  of  fire.  Messages 
are  sent  to  the  rear  to  hurry  up  the  reserves. 
Brigades  of  artillery,  which  are  out  at  rest,  hook  in 
and  start  forward  at  the  gallop.  Even  the  most 
autocratic  old  generals  are  convinced  and,  to  save 
their  reputations,  forsake  their  beds  and  become 
officiously  important.  Meanwhile,  the  men  in  the 
Front-line  shiver  in  the  darkness.  They  know  that 
they  have  no  chance  now  and  are  merely  waiting  to 
be  slaughtered. 

And  we,  on  our  side  of  No  Man's  Land,  we  wait 
also.  We  do  not  like  the  job  in  hand;  we  were  not 
born  to  be  butchers.  We  are  very  much  the  same  as 
those  chaps  over  there.  If  we  could,  we  would 
prefer  to  live  our  lives  out,  shake  hands  with  the 
enemy  and  go  home  to  our  families.  We  have  no 
quarrel  with  them  individually;  but  we  have  no 
means  of  telling  them  that.  It  seems  stupid  to  have 
come  so  far,  to  have  suffered  such  hardships,  to 
have  sat  up  so  many  weary  nights,  simply  in  order 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        187 

to  do  something  for  which  four  years  ago  we  should 
have  been  hanged.  But  we  can't  wriggle  out  of  it. 
If  we  tried  to  break  away,  all  along  the  roads  of 
France  armed  men  are  stationed  to  turn  us  back. 
We  are  impotent  to  express  any  choice  in  the  matter. 
Certain  people  have  quarrelled  —  people  who  do 
not  wear  khaki  and  who  will  never  face  death  at 
sunrise.  Who  they  are  and  why  they  should  have 
quarrelled,  we  do  not  properly  understand.  Prob- 
ably they  muddled  themselves  into  this  row;  how 
they  did  it,  they  themselves  could  not  tell  us. 
They're  kings  and  statesmen  and  nobs  —  far  too 
high  up  for  us  to  criticise.  All  we  know  is  that  we 
are  their  sacrifice.  Because  they  say  it  is  right,  the 
more  men  we  kill  at  dawn,  the  more  glory  we  shall 
earn.  Later  on,  if  we  survive  the  war  and  kill  only 
one  man,  they  will  tell  us  it  is  wrong,  and  we  shall 
end  on  the  scaffold. 

It's  all  very  puzzling  —  devilishly  puzzling,  when 
one's  brains  and  hands  and  feet  are  numbed  with 
cold.  It's  always  perishing  at  three  in  the  morn- 
ing   But  these  thoughts  don't  do  a  chap 

any  good;  there's  nothing  to  be  gained  by  philoso- 
phizing.   It's  been  going  on  for  four  years  now- 
this  living  in  mud  and  bathing  in  sweat,  and  always 
killing  something.     God  hasn't  spoken.     He  must 
know  what  he  wants.  \ 


At  3.45  A.  M.  the  sergeants  reported  that  all 
their  fuzes  were  set.    At  four  o'clock  the  whistle  was 


i88        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

blown  for  the  "  stand  to "  and  the  gun-crews 
crouched  behind  their  guns  in  readiness.  They 
needed  to  crouch,  for  the  enemy  shelling  was  finding 
us  out  and  growing  momentarily  in  intensity.  Evi- 
dently more  of  their  artillery  was  coming  up  and 
getting  into  action.  From  four  o'clock  onwards 
every  five  minutes  the  whistle  blew  and  through  the 
darkness  a  spectral  voice  announced:  "  Fifteen 
minutes  to  go";  "ten  minutes  to  go";  "five  minutes 
to  go."  From  far  and  wide  behind  the  fog  other 
whistles  were  heard  sounding,  and  other  voices 
making  the  same  announcement.  The  last  five 
minutes  were  counted  off  separately  and  the  final 
minute  in  intervals  of  ten  seconds:  "Thirty  seconds 
to  go,  twenty,  ten,  five."  Then,  "Let  her  rip,"  and 
a  shrill  blast  of  the  whistle. 

As  though  red-hot  needles  were  stabbing  at  the 
drums,  our  ears  are  ringing  and  deafened.  The  air 
quivers  and  the  ground  flies  up  as  if  it  were  about 
to  open.  Our  eyes  are  scorched  by  a  marching  wall 
of  flame,  against  which  are  etched  our  rapid 
gunners,  hurling  hell  across  the  valley  like  men  de- 
mented, and  our  gallant  eigh teen-pounders  barking, 
recoiling  and  bristling  like  infuriated  terriers. 
We're  off  with  a  vengeance.  The  greatest  offensive 
of  the  war  has  started.  Shall  we  get  away  with  it  in 
so  advanced  a  position?  At  all  events,  it's  an  end 
of  waiting  —  that  at  least  is  a  comfort. 


II 

YESTERDAY'S  attack  was  a  complete  success 
-so  complete  that,  in  spite  of  all  our  prepa- 
rations, its  magnitude  took  us  unaware.  Had  any- 
one, had  the  faith  to  foresee  a  Hun  defeat  of  such 
dimensions,  we  should  have  been  able  to  have  made 
a  more  deadly  use  of  our  advantage.  As  it  was  we 
lost  a  certain  amount  of  time  and,  as  a  consequence, 
wasted  some  of  our  chances. 

The  trouble  was,  as  usual,  that  we  were  controlled 
too  much  from  the  rear  by  staff-people,  who  didn't 
come  up-front  to  see  what  was  happening  for  them- 
selves, but  gathered  all  their  information  second 
and  third-hand.  When  the  psychological  moment 
had  arrived  for  us  to  go  forward,  they  became  ner- 
vous and  held  us  back.  There  were  interminable 
telephone  conversations  with  observers,  liaison- 
officers,  battery-commanders,  all  and  sundry,  be- 
fore they  could  be  persuaded  that  we  were  not  pro- 
posing to  put  our  heads  into  a  trap. 

Staff-people  are  the  most  incorrigible  pessimists. 
They  will  never  believe  the  fighter  when  he  sends 
back  word  that  victory  is  in  his  hands.  They  make 
him  leave  off  fighting  to  answer  foolish  questions; 
by  the  time  they  permit  him  to  go  on  fighting  the 
enemy  has  very  frequently  recovered  himself.  They 
are  so  cursed  with  a  fatal  belief  in  their  own  omni- 

i8g 


I9o        THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

science  that  they  scarcely  credit  the  combatants, 
who  run  all  the  risks,  with  sense. 

In  the  old  days  battles  were  won  by  generals  who 
led  their  troops  in  person,  sharing  the  dangers  and 
setting  an  example  by  their  courage.  They  were 
on  the  spot  as  eye-witnesses,  and  recognized  to  a 
second  when  the  moment  to  take  hazards  had 
arrived.  To-day  of  necessity  our  generals  and 
their  staffs  are  deskmen,  with  the  natural  caution 
and  scepticism  of  deskmen.  They  sit  far  back  of 
the  line,  remote  from  shell-fire,  in  chateaux  fitted  out 
like  surveyors'  offices  with  typewriters,  photographs, 
scales  and  maps.  They  do  all  their  fighting  on 
paper.  When  they  are  directing  an  attack,  they 
collect  their  information  by  telephone,  doubt  it,  sift 
it,  weigh  it,  ponder  it  and  discuss  it,  when  lightning 
action  is  all  that  is  required.  Many  of  them  have 
never  been  anything  but  deskmen  since  this  war 
started;  their  combatant  experience  was  gained  years 
ago  in  little  sporting  rough-and-tumbles  with  abor- 
igines on  the  outskirts  of  civilization.  Because  they 
have  never  personally  endured  the  modern  hell  into 
which  they  have  to  fling  their  men,  they  can  form 
no  mental  picture  of  the  situations  that  occur,  and 
the  prompt  action  that  should  be  taken.  They  are 
equipped  for  planning  the  preliminary  details  of  a 
show;  but  their  control  of  an  attack,  when  once 
it  has  started,  is  paralyzing.  So  much  is  this  the 
case  that  it's  a  common  saying  among  the  men 
that  the  battles  which  we  win  in  the  trenches  are 
lost  by  the  staff-people  who  are  behind. 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         191 

On  the  morning  of  August  the  eighth  the  weather 
conditions  were  all  in  our  favour.  The  fog  was  worth 
several  extra  divisions  to  us.  It  kept  the  enemy 
guessing.  We  knew  what  we  intended  to  do,  but 
he  had  to  find  out.  The  fog  enabled  us  to  conceal 
our  intentions  up  to  the  very  last  moment.  Until 
we  were  upon  him,  he  had  no  knowledge  of  the 
directions  from  which  we  were  approaching;  by  the 
time  we  were  upon  him  it  was  too  late  for  him  to 
take  the  proper  defensive  steps.  The  first  warning 
he  had  was  when  out  of  the  deathly  stillness  our 
murderous  barrage  came  roaring  and  screaming 
about  his  head.  Never  on  any  front  has  there  been 
so  tremendous  a  concentration  of  guns  as  we  let  loose 
on  him  that  morning.  The  weight  of  shells  and 
mass  of  explosives  that  we  threw  over  him  literally 
rolled  up  the  landscape  and  pinned  everything  living 
to  the  ground.  It  passed  over  his  trench-system 
like  a  gigantic  plough,  burying  men  and  weapons, 
and  travelled  on  into  the  distance  by  a  pre-arranged 
series  of  leaps  and  bounds.  The  tanks,  following 
the  curtain  of  fire  and  lumbering  ahead  of  the  in- 
fantry, trampled  into  flatness  whatever  resistance 
the  creeping  barrage  had  spared. 

While  the  heavens  were  raining  brimstone  and 
fire  up  front,  his  back-country  was  faring  no  better, 
for  every  battery  position,  strong-point,  support- 
trench,  cross-road,  regimental  headquarters  and 
camp  of  which  we  had  knowledge  was  kept  under 
continual  bombardment  by  our  siege-guns  and 
heavies.  Meanwhile  our  cavalry  of  the  air  were 


192         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

flying  low  along  his  roads,  by  which  retreat  was 
possible,  machine-gunning  and  bombing.  It  was 
like  stopping  up  all  the  holes  and  smoking  a  wild 
beast  out  of  his  lair.  The  remnants  of  his  Front-line 
garrison,  who  had  not  been  pulverised  by  our  tanks 
or  buried  by  our  shelling,  threw  away  their  arms 
and  came  streaming  through  the  dawn  to  encounter 
the  mercy  of  our  bayonets.  Later,  those  who  had 
been  taken  prisoners,  straggled  in  groups  of  twos  and 
threes  past  our  guns.  They  looked  more  like  animals 
than  men,  their  eyes  glaring,  their  heads  nodding, 
their  steps  tottering.  Some  of  them  walked  shuf- 
flingly, like  blinded  men,  groping  for  their  direction. 
Others  ran  panting  at  a  wolf-trot,  as  if  they  still 
felt  that  they  were  pursued  by  death.  All  of  them 
were  polluted  with  the  unspeakable  stench  of  car- 
nage; behind  the  smoke  of  battle,  before  we  saw 
them,  we  could  smell  them  coming. 

If  the  weather  conditions  favoured  our  infantry 
and  tanks,  they  were  even  more  favourable  to  our- 
selves. Had  there  been  no  fog,  the  moment  we 
opened  fire  our  flashes  would  have  been  spotted,  our 
positions  on  the  map  discovered  and  our  batteries 
wiped  out.  As  it  was  our  flashes,  as  seen  through 
the  fog  from  the  enemy's  commanding  height  of 
land,  must  have  appeared  a  composite  blur  of  flame, 
flickering  across  the  landscape  for  miles  from  right 
to  left.  He  made  a  strenuous  effort  to  bombard  us, 
but  was  hopelessly  inaccurate  and  out  for  range. 
After  shelling  us  in  a  random  fashion  for  perhaps 
fifteen  minutes,  he  seemed  to  get  wind  of  the  dis- 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         193 

aster  that  had  happened  up  front  and,  putting  his 
guns  out  of  action,  drew  them  back.  When  he 
opened  up  again,  his  shells  came  slowly,  as  though 
from  a  great  distance,  and  landed  anywhere  and 
everywhere,  haphazard. 

The  dawn  rose  slowly,  as  though  reluctant  to  look 
upon  our  handiwork.  If  it  seemed  slow  to  us,  how 
much  slower  it  must  have  seemed  to  the  men  whom 
we  were  slaughtering.  There  was  no  rush  of  golden 
splendour,  no  valiant  peering  of  the  sun  above  a 
treed  horizon  —  only  a  thinly  diffused  pallor,  shape- 
less and  ghastly,  which  made  the  mist  appear  more 
impenetrable  than  ever.  Day  evaded  us,  hiding  his 
chalky  face  in  his  hands,  like  a  clown  who  had  gazed 
on  tragedy.  When  light  came  there  was  no  laughter 
in  its  glance;  it  was  a  dead  thing  drifting  in  a  stag- 
nant emptiness.  The  flashes  of  the  guns  tore  rents 
in  the  filmy  obscurity  by  which  we  were  surrounded, 
but  they  could  not  disperse  it.  Our  eyes  were 
smarting,  our  ears  deafened,  our  senses  astounded. 
The  ground  beneath  our  feet  quivered  as  though  it 
were  the  crust  of  a  volcano.  Our  nerves  shied  at 
each  fresh  concussion,  and  our  bodies  trembled.  We 
longed  for  the  sky  to  become  clear  that  we  might 
learn  what  was  happening.  We  had  signalling 
parties  attached  to  the  infantry  with  flags  and 
lamps.  It  had  been  arranged  beforehand  that  we 
should  watch  various  points  in  the  captured  country 
for  their  messages.  If  they  had  tried  to  send  any 
back,  none  had  been  observed. 

As   the  strafe  progressed,  the  mist  was  made 


i94        THE   TEST    OF    SCARLET 

doubly  dense  by  the  reek  of  battle.  The  atmos- 
phere became  choking  with  the  fumes  of  high  ex- 
plosives and  the  enemy,  in  a  desperate  effort  to  si- 
lence us,  commenced  to  shell  us  with  gas.  We  lit 
innumerable  cigarettes  to  steady  our  nerves  and 
carried  on  mechanically  with  our  destructive  work. 
Running  from  gun-platform  to  gun-platform,  we 
checked  up  the  lays  of  the  gunners.  Every  few 
minutes  the  whistle  sounded  for  a  lift  in  the  bar- 
rage, and  there  was  a  momentary  pause  in  the  crash 
of  discharge  while  the  angle  was  changed  and  the 
range  lengthened. 

Along  the  road  to  our  left,  where  shells  were  fall- 
ing, ambulances  lurched  and  panted,  leaving  behind 
a  trail  of  blood.  Wounded  Tommies  staggered  by, 
with  their  arms  about  the  shoulders  of  wounded 
Huns.  Meeting  these  derelicts  who  were  returning, 
fresh  companies  of  supporting  infantry  moved  up, 
undaunted  by  the  spectacle  of  a  fate  which  they 
might  share.  At  the  sight  of  us  firing  they  waved 
their  caps  shouting,  "That's  the  stuff  to  give  'em. 
Give  'em  one  for  us,  boys.  Give  'em  hell." 

At  what  hour  it  happened  I  cannot  say  for  cer- 
tain; the  mist  was  clearing,  the  sun  was  beginning 
to  be  merry  and  the  air  was  streaky  with  lavender- 
tinted  smoke,  when  between  the  pollarded  trees  of 
the  high-road  batteries  of  French  seventy-fives  ap- 
peared, gallantly  trotting  to  the  carnage.  They 
were  the  first  of  the  sacrifice  batteries  moving  up. 
Shells  burst  to  right  and  to  left  of  them;  one  fell 
directly  among  them.  It  made  no  difference;  the 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         195 

guns  and  wagons  which  were  behind,  swerving  aside 
and  round  the  struggling  mass,  passed  determinedly 
on  to  meet  the  vaster  horror  which  lay  before  them. 
The  drivers,  sitting  stiffly  erect  as  on  parade,  rose 
and  fell  to  the  movement  of  the  horses.  The  gun- 
ners clung  tightly  to  the  jolting  vehicles,  no  tremor 
of  emotion  showing  on  their  faces.  They  were  going 
into  open  warfare,  where  men  die  cleanly  among 
wheat-fields.  The  sight  was  superb  and  filled  us 
with  envy. 

We  had  been  firing  at  extreme  range  for  some 
time;  now  at  last  across  the  wire  the  order  came  to 
stand  down.  This  meant  that  where  our  shells  had 
been  falling,  our  infantry  were  preparing  to  advance; 
it  also  meant  that  unless  we  hooked  in  and  followed 
up,  we  should  be  permanently  out  of  action. 

We  felt  disgraced  to  sit  there  doing  nothing, 
while  crowds  of  those  about  to  die  streamed  past  us. 
Yes,  streamed  past  us;  they  came  in  droves,  these 
young  lads  with  their  keen,  bronzed  faces.  They 
came  singing  and  twirling  their  caps  on  their  bayo- 
nets, as  if  fear  were  an  emotion  unknown  to  their 
hearts.  They  came  brushing  through  the  wheat, 
following  the  tracks  the  tanks  had  made;  they  came 
cheering  up  the  ravines  and  laughing  along  the 
high-road.  They  came  carrying  rifles,  machine- 
guns,  trench-mortars,  bombs  —  all  the  filthy  inven- 
tions war  has  brought  to  perfection,  whereby  one 
man  may  torture  another.  They  stuck  wild-flowers 
in  their  tunics,  as  if  off  on  a  holiday.  They  never 
once  acknowledged  by  word  or  gesture  that  life 


i96        THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

might  hold  for  them  no  more  to-morrows.  Brave 
hearts !  And  always  as  they  passed,  seeing  us  sitting 
beside  our  silent  guns  with  our  still  more  silent 
faces,  they  would  throw  back  gay  taunts  about 
meeting  us  in  Germany.  We  could  not  taunt  back; 
we  felt  ourselves  a  farce.  In  our  minds  we  saw  the 
French  sacrifice  batteries  going  at  the  gallop  into 
action,  "Halt,  action  front,"  popping  off  their  rounds, 
hooking  in  again,  and  going  on  and  on  forever. 
Why  had  we  been  forced  to  march  so  far  if,  now 
that  we  were  here,  they  did  not  intend  to  use  us? 
They'd  shown  precious  little  consideration  up  to 
now;  and  now,  when  the  battle  was  raging  and  we 
were  needed  and  ought  not  to  be  spared,  they  were 
willing  to  spare  us.  Death  didn't  in  the  least  mat- 
ter, if  only  we  'could  earn  our  share  in  the  glory. 

Our  little  Major  was  fuming,  mutinous  and  twitch- 
ing with  impatience,  when  Heming  rode  up  and 
saluted,  bringing  the  news  that  he  had  the  teams, 
wagons  and  limbers  halted  behind  the  orchard.  In 
a  trice  the  Major  was  on  the  'phone,  pleading  for 
permission  to  breeze  off  with  us  into  the  blue  and 
take  a  chance.  His  request  was  curtly  refused; 
our  division  of  artillery  was  to  stay  where  it  was 
and  to  hold  the  line  in  depth,  in  case  the  infantry 
was  driven  back  by  the  Huns. 

Major  Charlie  Wraith  kicked  the  'phone  over  in 
his  anger.  He  said  a  good  many  things  which 
could  quite  easily  have  earned  him  a  court-martial. 
Hold  the  line  in  depth,  indeed  —  an  old  woman's 
precaution!  This  was  a  fine  time  to  be  playing 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         197 

safe,  when  our  infantry  were  out  there,  forging 
miles  ahead  without  guns  to  protect  them.  If 
they  got  beaten  back,  whose  fault  would  that  be  with 
no  artillery  to  support  them?  It  was  the  old  story 
of  the  staff-people  losing  the  battle  for  us.  If  vic- 
tory were  turned  into  defeat,  the  way  it  was  at  Cam- 
brai,  we  should  have  our  red-tabs  to  thank  for  it. 
It  was  about  half-an-hour  after  this  disappointment 
that  belated  word  came  through  that  the  enemy's 
resistance  was  stiffening  and  an  attack  was  pending. 
One  section  from  each  battery  had  to  go  forward 
under  two  junior  officers.  Ours  was  ordered  to  re- 
port to  the  nth  Battalion  and  to  act  under  the  direc- 
tion of  the  infantry  colonel.  Its  job  was  to  follow 
within  sight  of  the  attack  and  to  come  into  action 
in  the  open,  if  necessary,  for  the  purpose  of  knock- 
ing out  machine-gun  nests  or  any  other  obstacles 
which  were  holding  up  the  advance. 

The  Major  turned  to  me.  "You  will  take  your 
section,  and  Tubby  Grain  will  go  with  you." 
As  he  walked  away  his  throat  thickened  with  some- 
thing very  like  a  sob.  "By  God,  I'd  revert  to  a 
one-pip  artist  and  I'd  give  the  very  shirt  off  my 
back  to  see  what  you  lads  are  going  to  see  this 
morning." 


Ill 

WE  started  off  at  9  A.  M.  feeling  like  a  pair  of 
generals,  Tubby  and  I  with  our  brace  of 
eigh teen-pounders,  our  ammunition- wagons  and  our 
men.  We  were  setting  out  practically  as  free-lances, 
to  discover  our  own  chances  of  glory.  The  only  senior 
officer  to  whom  we  had  to  report  was  the  battalion- 
colonel;  there  was  no  one  in  the  rear  with  whom  we 
had  to  keep  in  touch,  who  would  have  the  power  to 
hold  us  back.  How  much  fighting  we  would  see 
before  dusk  fell  depended  entirely  upon  our  own 
initiative.  We  intended  to  see  a  lot. 

We  had  been  given  maps,  which  would  carry  us 
about  fifteen  miles  into  what  had  been  the  enemy's 
country.  We  had  been  given  rations  to  last  one 
meal  for  the  men  and  horses,  the  usual  twenty-four 
hours'  allowance  for  the  battery  not  having  arrived 
when  we  made  our  start.  The  Major  promised  to 
follow  us  up  with  provisions  later,  if  that  were  pos- 
sible; if  it  were  not,  we  would  have  to  forage  for 
ourselves.  In  view  of  the  extremely  meagre  break- 
fast we  had  had,  this  shortness  of  supplies  was  the 
one  small  cloud  on  our  otherwise  bright  horizon. 
The  last  sight  we  had  as  we  pulled  out  on  our 
journey  was  the  tragically  covetous  faces  of  the 
companions  from  whom  we  were  parting.  "  Good- 

198 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         199 

bye,  old  things,"  they  shouted.  "  Win  a  V.  C. 
apiece.  If  you  don't,  you're  not  worth  your  salt." 

The  road  down  to  Domart  was  by  this  time 
heavily  crowded  with  transport  moving  in  both 
directions.  The  traffic  moving  forward  consisted 
for  the  most  part  of  tanks  and  lorries,  carrying  up 
infantry  and  ammunition.  The  returning  traffic 
was  made  up  almost  solely  of  prisoners,  walking 
wounded  and  motor-transport  bringing  back  our 
casualties.  At  first  it  was  necessary  to  proceed  at 
the  walk  in  a  crawling  procession,  which  often 
halted.  As  Tubby  rode  beside  me  at  the  head  of  our 
column,  we  planned  our  individual  campaign  to- 
gether. We  arranged  that  I  would  lead  the  guns, 
while  he  rode  ahead  with  mounted  signallers  and 
sent  me  back  my  targets.  We  weren't  going  to  miss 
a  trick;  we  were  going  to  take  everything. 
Wherever  there  was  a  machine-gun  to  be  knocked 
out,  we'd  be  there  to  do  it. 

Through  the  stench  and  reek  of  battle  the  sun 
was  shining  valiantly.  With  the  melting  of  the  fog, 
our  sense  of  tension  had  vanished.  We  felt  tre- 
mendously sporting,  as  though  we  were  riding  out  to 
a  day  of  hunting.  To  keep  our  thoughts  from 
growing  serious,  we  made  up  poker  hands  out  of  the 
Army  numbers  on  the  ambulances  that  we  passed. 

Presently  Tubby  said,  "  Did  you  ever  think  that 
the  thing  might  happen  to  you  that  has  happened 
to  those  chaps?" 

I  followed  his  glance  and  saw  that  he  was  looking 
at  three  of  our  infantry  sprawled  out  by  the  road- 


200         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

side;  they  had  evidently  all  three  been  caught  by 
the  one  shell.  I  nodded.  "  Oh  yes,  I've  thought  of 
that.  I  expect  we  all  have." 

"  But  I  don't  mean  simply  thinking  of  it,"  he  in- 
sisted. "  What  I  mean  is  have  you  ever  known  in 
your  bones  that  you  weren't  .going  to  last  —  that 
you  were  going  to  look  exactly  as  those  chaps  look 
before  the  war  is  ended?" 

"None  of  us  knows  that,"  I  said  shortly,  "and  to 
believe  that  you  know  it  is  morbid." 

The  worst  thing  that  can  happen  to  a  man  at  the 
Front  is  for  him  to  get  the  premonition  that  he  is 
going  to  be  killed.  Whether  it  is  that  this  feeling 
really  is  a  warning  or  that  the  imagining  that  he  has 
been  forewarned  attracts  the  thing  that  kills  him,  it 
is  impossible  to  tell;  it  is,  however,  a  fact  that  the 
belief  seems  to  destroy  a  man's  magic  immunity 
and  one  usually  hears  of  his  death  within  a  short 
time  of  his  making  such  a  confession. 

"  I'm  not  morbid."  Tubby  spoke  quite  whole- 
somely. "I'm  not  going  queer,  the  way  some  chaps 
do,  and  I'm  not  afraid.  I'm  not  asking  you  to  be 
sorry  for  me,  and  I'm  not  pitying  myself.  If  I 
were  given  the  choice  I'd  sooner  go  west  out  here, 
doing  something  average  decent,  than  drag  on  into 
peace  times  and  disappoint  myself.  And  I  should 
disappoint  myself;  you  know  that." 

"  Don't  worry  yourself,  old  son,"  I  replied  cheer- 
fully; "  you're  not  the  only  one.  We  shall  all  dis- 
appoint ourselves." 

He  nodded.    "  Yes,  every  man  disappoints  him- 


THE  TEST  OF  SCARLET  201 
self,  but  not  all  along  the  line,  the  way  I  should 
because  of  one  wrong  act.  .  .  .  I  was  only  a  kid 
when  I  crossed  from  Canada  and  I  was  horribly 
lonely  and  ...  I  don't  suppose  this  is  in  the 
least  interesting  to  you;  I'll  put  it  briefly  and  then 
we'll  talk  of  something  else.  There  was  a  girl  and 
she  seemed  kind  —  not  at  all  the  sort  of  girl  with 
whom  I  could  be  happy.  I  didn't  marry  her  and 
since  I've  been  out  here  ..." 
He  didn't  finish  his  sentence. 
"  She's  been  blackmailing  you?"  I  asked.  "  A 
lot  of  that's  done." 

He  stared  me  honestly  between  the  eyes.  "  Worse 
than  that.  It's  been  hell.  She  writes  me  there's 
another  coming." 

Without  giving  me  a  chance  to  reply,  he  whirled 
his  horse  about  and  went  away  at  a  trot  to  the  rear 
of  the  column. 

Poor  little  Tubby!  What  a  lot  it  must  have  cost 
him  to  be  always  cheerful  and  smiling.  I  under- 
stood now  why  he  had  gambled  so  heavily  and,  how- 
ever much  he  won,  had  always  remained  in  debt. 
What  a  nightmare  his  experience  of  war  must  have 
been  to  him,  continually  facing  up  to  death  with 
the  knowledge  that  every  time  he  came  back  alive 
the  bill  for  the  old  sin  would  once  more  be  presented. 
His  case  can  be  multiplied  by  thousands. 

From  the  start  of  the  war  there  have  been  girls 
who  have  made  a  trade  of  preying  on  the  con- 
sciences of  men  who  are  risking  their  all  in  the 
trenches.  Half  the  time  their  trump-card,  that  there 


202         THE   TEST    OF   SCARLET 

is  a  child,  is  no  more  than  a  mean  lie  by  means  of 
which  to  extract  money.  In  the  light  of  this  little 
glimpse  of  pitiful  biography,  the  world  to  which  we 
had  said  good-bye  seemed  full  of  treacherous  traps 
to  betray  our  manhood;  this  thing  which  we  were 
now  doing,  despite  its  terrible  cruelty,  was  clean  and 
straight  and  redemptive.  You  rode  into  action  with 
the  sun  shining  to  do  one  strong  thing  and,  if  need 
be,  to  die  when  your  courage  was  at  its  highest. 
There  wasn't  much  to  regret  about  that.  It  was 
easy  to  be  good  when  to  be  brave  was  all  that  was 
required. 

We  had  come  down  to  Domart,  the  little  village 
on  the  edge  of  No  Man's  Land,  from  which  the 
offensive  had  started.  The  houses  were  bent  and 
twisted.  Their  roofs  were  gone  and  their  walls 
gaped  with  ugly  holes  where  shells  had  torn  through 
them.  Of  those  which  still  stood,  there  was  scarcely 
one  which  had  not  had  a  side  taken  out.  Some  of 
them  were  in  flames;  others  had  caved  in  and 
sprawled  black  and  smouldering..  The  ruins  were 
filled  with  poisonous  odours,  gas,  blood,  decay,  the 
fumes  of  explosives.  Yet  one  noted  the  heroism  of 
the  little  gardens  which  had  somehow  contrived  to 
outlive  this  hell.  Trees  were  dead  and  stood  limply 
with  their  arms  blown  off  or  hanging  laboriously  at 
their  sides  by  a  shred;  but  flowers  still  smiled  and 
lifted  up  their  faces.  All  along  the  streets,  outside 
improvised  dressing-stations,  our  wounded  lay  on 
stretchers.  There  was  no  moaning  —  no  giving  way 
to  pity.  However  terrible  their  wounds,  they  rested 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         203 

there  in  the  sun  with  the  blood  drying  on  their 
cheeks,  perfectly  motionless  and  apparently  happy 
that  for  a  time  their  fighting  days  were  ended.  They 
were  mostly  blue  and  gray-eyed  men,  simple  and 
childish  looking  in  their  helplessness.  The  stretcher- 
bearers  were  Hun  prisoners,  depressed  fellows,  who 
perspired  freely  beneath  their  enormous  steel  hel- 
mets and  the  bulky  haversacks  which  they  carried 
on  their  shoulders.  They  plodded  to  and  fro  like 
dumb  animals,  docile,  obedient  and  eager  to  in- 
gratiate themselves.  One  wondered  why  at  dawn 
we  should  have  attempted  to  kill  each  other,  when 
a  few  hours  later  we  could  get  along  so  comfortably. 

On  the  far  side  of  the  village  we  began  to  climb 
the  heavily  entrenched  slope,  which  the  enemy  had 
held  that  morning.  Nothing  of  his  trench-system 
was  left.  The  shell-holes  were  nearly  all  fresh  and 
stretched  lip  to  lip  as  far  as  Dodo  Wood,  proving 
the  accuracy  and  intensity  of  our  barrage.  How- 
ever many  men  had  perished,  hardly  a  trace  of  them 
was  left;  they  had  been  buried  by  the  unseen  thing 
that  had  murdered  them. 

At  the  edge  of  Dodo  Wood  a  mounted  man  met 
us,  bringing  a  message  that  the  battalion  we  were 
supporting  would  probably  attack  at  noon,  and  ap- 
pointing as  our  place  of  rendezvous  a  deep  ravine 
several  miles  ahead.  We  had  lost  so  much  time 
through  halts  in  the  traffic  that  it  was  already  very 
nearly  eleven.  If  we  were  to  keep  our  appointment, 
our  only  chance  was  to  strike  off  to  the  left  across 
country  and  risk  being  still  further  delayed  by  wire 


204         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

entanglements  and  shell-holes.  We  picked  up  the 
track  of  one  of  our  tanks  and  followed  it  round  the 
edge  of  a  high  plateau. 

It  was  curious  to  note  how  very  slightly  the 
plateau  was  fortified.  The  enemy  must  have  been 
hugely  confident  of  his  ability  to  hold  that  ground. 
Here  and  there  he  had  established  strong-points, 
which  our  tanks  had  discovered  and  stamped  flat; 
but  of  trenches  there  were  hardly  any.  One  saw 
extraordinarily  few  dead  and  none  at  all  of  our  own 
fellows.  It  was  obvious  that  the  enemy  had  not 
tried  to  make  a  stand;  the  moment  his  Front-line 
had  been  overwhelmed  all  the  forces  which  were  be- 
hind him  had  broken  and  fled,  allowing  our  chaps 
to  romp  home.  It  was  as  unlike  a  modern  battle- 
field as  you  could  well  imagine.  The  sun  shone  and 
larks  sang  overhead.  Through  the  trampled  wheat 
every  now  and  then  a  hare  scampered;  save  our- 
selves nothing  human  was  in  sight,  living  or  dead. 
The  armies  of  pursuers  and  pursued  had  slogged 
their  way  forward  and  vanished  into  the  blue  dis- 
tance that  lay  ahead. 

We  came  down  by  a  gradual  decline  to  the  ravine 
which  had  been  named  as  our  rendezvous.  It  was  an 
angry  looking  place,  with  steep  grassy  slopes  rising 
up  precipitously  on  either  side  and  no  possible 
means  of  escape,  when  once  it  had  been  entered, 
except  by  the  exits  at  either  end.  The  ravine,  like 
the  plateau,  was  empty  and  silent  —  nothing  spoke, 
nothing  stirred.  Unlike  the  plateau  it  was  not 
merry  with  wind  and  sunshine;  it  was  sinister,  shad- 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         205 

owy,  and  held  a  hint  of  menace.  No  one  was  there 
to  meet  us;  so  while  Tubby  rode  on  to  find  the  in- 
fantry headquarters,  I  left  the  section  to  rest,  while 
I  reconnoitred  a  village  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
distant  for  a  place  at  which  to  water  the  horses. 
One  had  to  go  cautiously  in  investigating  country 
so  recently  captured,  as  there  were  quite  likely  to 
be  pockets  of  Huns  left  behind,  who  had  been  over- 
looked in  the  rapidity  of  the  advance.  There  was 
also  this  additional  reason  for  caution,  that  in  a 
moving  battle  it  was  impossible  to  tell  where  our 
Front-line  was  at  any  particular  moment.  It  would 
be  quite  easy  to  go  too  far  and  find  oneself  in  the 
hands  of  the  enemy. 

When  I  entered  the  village  I  found  that  it  was  as 
dead  as  Sodom.  It  stank  like  an  open  sewer.  Into 
its  streets  mattresses,  broken  furniture,  every  kind 
of  refuse,  had  been  cast.  It  had  evidently  only  re- 
cently been  vacated  by  the  enemy,  for  the  signs  of 
his  going  were  everywhere.  He  must  have  sur- 
rendered it  without  firing  a  shot,  for  the  only  dead 
were  his  own  soldiers,  who  had  been  killed  by  our 
bombardment,  and  one  civilian  woman  with  a  little 
fair-haired  child  in  her  arms.  I  tied  up  my  horse 
and  with  my  groom  entered  several  of  the  houses, 
thinking  that  we  might  find  food  to  help  us  eke  out 
our  rations.  The  Hun,  with  a  methodical  orderliness 
which  almost  called  for  admiration,  had  anticipated 
our  necessity  and,  even  in  the  panic  of  his  de- 
parture, had  not  left  so  much  as  a  loaf  of  bread. 
Whatever  he  could  not  carry  off  he  had  polluted 


206        THE   TEST   OF    SCARLET 

and  rendered  useless.  The  only  food  we  found  was 
in  a  Quartermaster's  store,  where  the  Quartermaster, 
a  man  of  immense  proportions,  sat  huddled  in 
a  chair  with  a  huge  skull- wound  in  his  forehead, 
contemplating  a  meal  which  he  would  never  finish, 
over  which  the  flies  hummed  a  requiem. 

We  examined  the  wells  behind  the  houses;  all  ex- 
cept three  of  them  had  been  filled  with  rubbish.  We 
rode  down  to  the  river;  here  the  stench  we  had 
noticed  on  entering  grew  nauseating.  Everything 
that  could  render  the  water  undrinkable  had  been 
flung  into  it;  dead  men,  dead  horses  and  indescrib- 
able offal.  It  was  horrible,  this  irreverent  use  they 
had  made  of  men  who  had  been  their  comrades. 
While  we  watched  the  little  river  which  yesterday 
had  been  so  clean  and  happy,  strangling  between  its 
grassy  banks,  we  heard  the  jingling  of  swords 
and  the  sharp  trit-trotting  of  horsemen  approaching. 
Round  a  bend  in  the  empty  street  came  the  first  of 
our  cavalry,  their  chargers  side-stepping  and  pranc- 
ing, and  their  men  bending  forward  with  an  expres- 
sion of  smiling  expectancy.  They  were  the  most 
gallant  sight  of  a  gallant  morning,  these  magnificent 
animals,  dumb  and  human,  who  had  waited  through- 
out the  war  for  their  chance  and  now,  like  unleashed 
hounds,  came  running  hot  upon  the  scent,  eager  to 
prove  their  mettle.  The  sight  of  them  was  inspir- 
ing and  instinct  with  intelligence;  it  lifted  the  mere 
toil  of  killing  out  of  its  monotony  and  into  the  rarer 
atmosphere  of  valour. 

They  drew  up  by  the  river,  but  only  for  a  mo- 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        207 

ment.  The  dainty  creatures  lowered  their  muzzles 
to  the  water,  screamed  and  jumped  back,  shaking 
their  heads.  They  looked  like  high-born  ladies, 
fresh  from  the  toilet,  scented  and  washed  and  con- 
temptuous of  anything  that  would  soil  their  perfec- 
tion. There  was  a  look  of  inexhaustible  youth  about 
them,  as  though  they  had  been  pampered  with  the 
promise  of  unescapable  immortality. 

With  a  hunting  cry  and  a  touch  of  the  spur,  they 
went  bounding  off  through  the  shining  weather, 
leaving  behind  a  memory  which  set  a  standard. 

We  were  to  see  them  not  so  many  hours  later, 
when  their  glory  had  been  accomplished. 


IV 

WE  watered  our  horses  out  of  the  buckets  at 
the  few  wells  which  had  not  been  poisoned. 
It  was  a  lengthy  process,  but  we  were  all  finished 
and  ready  to  move  off  by  the  time  Tubby  returned. 
He  brought  word  that  it  had  been  found  impossible 
to  pull  off  the  attack  at  the  hour  set.  The  country 
in  front  of  us  was  studded  with  woods  and  cut  up  by 
gorges,  which  the  enemy  was  holding  with  machine- 
guns.  Moreover,  by  retiring  the  Hun  had  shortened 
the  distance  for  his  supports  to  come  up  and  was 
now  numerically  much  stronger  than  had  at  first 
been  imagined.  The  bulk  of  our  artillery  were  too 
far  back  to  be  brought  up,  so  the  tasks  which  ought 
to  have  been  undertaken  by  the  guns  were  to  be 
carried  out  by  bombing-planes.  As  soon  as  these 
were  ready  the  assault  would  commence.  Mean- 
while our  instructions  were  to  push  on  to  the  head 
of  the  ravine  and  remain  there  concealed  till  we 
were  ordered  forward. 

"  It's  going  to  be  a  pretty  sporting  show,  if  I 
know  anything  about  it,"  Tubby  said,  when  we 
were  once  again  on  the  march.  "  The  infantry  are 
fed  up  to  the  back-teeth  with  the  way  in  which  the 
guns  have  failed  to  keep  in  touch  with  them.  And 
I  don't  wonder  —  you  wait  till  you  see  the  kind  of 
country  they've  got  to  tackle.  It's  no  joke  being  a 

208 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         209 

lone  man  on  two  legs,  with  hundreds  of  field-guns 
pointing  at  you  and  quite  as  many  machine-guns 
singing  your  swan-song  in  the  woods,  and  all  their 
stuff  coming  over  and  none  of  yours  going  back. 
It's  a  bit  stiff  to  tell  chaps  to  advance  against  that, 
as  though  you  expected  'em  to  strangle  whole  bat- 
teries with  their  naked  hands.  It's  up  to  us  to  show 
them  that  the  eigh teen-pounders  aren't  quitters. 
We'll  take  as  long  a  chance  as  any  of  them.  If 
some  of  us  aren't  pushing  daisies  by  sunset,  it  won't 
be  our  fault." 

Out  of  the  corner  of  my  eye  I  watched  him.  He 
wasn't  the  same  man  who  had  made  that  shabby  lit- 
tle confession  to  me  earlier  in  the  morning.  He  had 
been  weak  and  conscience-haunted  then;  now  he  was 
eager  and  heroic.  One  no  longer  noticed  that  he 
was  fat  and  good-natured  and  ordinary;  a  new 
boldness  and  dignity  transformed  him.  The  test  of 
scarlet  was  discovering  chivalrous  values  in  Tubby 
of  which  he  himself  was  only  partly  aware. 

As  though  he  recognised  my  thoughts,  he  nodded, 
"  I'm  happy.  I  wouldn't  have  missed  to-day  for 
worlds." 

To  the  south  of  us,  like  hail-stones  pounding  on  a 
roof  of  metal,  a  heavy  bombardment  had  been 
steadily  growing  in  violence.  It  was  the  French 
putting  on  an  attack.  Probably  the  seventy-fives 
we  had  seen  trotting  into  action  that  morning  were 
in  it.  Good  luck  to  them.  As  suddenly  as  it  had 
opened,  it  died  down,  and  was  succeeded  by  the 
crackling  of  rifle-fire.  We  pictured  the  blue-clad 


210        THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

tiger-men  of  France  going  over,  dropping  on  one 
knee  to  take  aim,  then  up  and  on  again  to  slake  the 
thirst  of  their  bayonets. 

With  a  kind  of  glee,  Tubby  whispered,  "  Our 
turn  next." 

Up  to  this  point  the  ravine  had  been  bare  of  any 
signs  of  battle;  now  dramatically,  as  we  rounded  a 
spur  in  the  hillside,  we  found  ourselves  gazing  on  a 
scene  which  made  us  catch  our  breath.  This  must 
have  been  one  of  the  enemy's  camps,  cleverly  se- 
lected because  of  the  shelter  which  the  steeply 
sloping  banks  afforded.  The  open  space  between 
the  banks  was  so  narrow  that  it  looked  like  an 
emptied  river-bed.  In  this  open  space  were  wagons, 
arrested  in  the  act  of  pulling  out.  The  drivers  still 
sat  on  their  seats,  as  though  overcome  by  sleep,  with 
their  heads  sagging  against  their  breasts  and  the 
reins  held  limply  in  their  hands.  The  teams  still 
hooked  to  the  vehicles,  had  crumpled  forward  in  the 
traces.  The  doors  of  all  the  little  wooden  shacks 
along  the  side  of  the  ravine  were  wide  open.  Be- 
tween them  and  the  wagons  men  lay  sprawled  upon 
the  turf,  as  though  caught  midway  in  the  act  of 
running.  The  only  living  things  which  stirred,  were 
wounded  horses  of  appalling  leanness,  which  were 
feebly  grazing  and  on  seeing  us,  tottered  a  few  steps, 
and  then  waited,  as  if  asking  us  to  come  to  their 
help. 

Instinctively,  without  an  order  being  given,  the 
entire  column  behind  us  halted.  Death  is  horrible 
enough  when  it  looks  like  death;  but  when  it 


THE    TEST    OF   SCARLET         211 

mimics  life,  it  applauds  its  own  terror.  At  first  we 
had  the  feeling  that  we  had  stumbled  on  a  sleepy 
hollow;  were  we  to  make  a  noise,  all  these  sleeping 
forms  would  waken  and  rise  from  the  ground. 

How  had  the  tragedy  happened?  Had  our  guns, 
after  having  allowed  them  to  believe  themselves 
secure,  deluged  them  with  shells  when  the  dawn  was 
breaking?  Or  had  our  bombing-planes  discovered 
them  at  the  moment  when  they  were  escaping? 
However  they  had  died,  it  was  easy  to  reconstruct 
the  scene's  mercilessness  and  agony.  In  contem- 
plating it,  we  felt  a  momentary  shame.  The  cow- 
ardice of  war  is  forever  treading  hard  on  the  heels 
of  its  valour.  These  men  had  had  no  chance  to  de- 
fend themselves.  They  had  not  seen  the  men  by 
whom  they  were  murdered.  They  had  been  roused 
from  sleep  by  a  commotion,  to  find  death  raining  on 
them  from  the  air. 

As  we  renewed  our  advance,  we  discovered  that 
not  all  of  the  men  were  dead.  Some  looked  up  with 
dimming  eyes  as  we  passed.  They  neither  approved 
nor  condemned  us.  They  were  beyond  all  that.  We 
had  neither  the  time  nor  the  materials  to  help  them. 
The  shell-dressing,  which  we  each  carried,  we  might 
need  for  ourselves  before  the  day  was  out.  We  had 
not  dared  to  fill  our  water-bottles  at  the  wells  in  the 
village;  so  our  supplies  were  only  what  we  had 
brought  with  us,  and  they  were  fast  getting 
exhausted. 

When  we  came  to  the  head  of  the  ravine,  we  were 
glad  that  we  had  not  given  water  to  the  enemy,  for 


212        THE   TEST   OF    SCARLET 

there  we  found  our  own  wounded  scattered  through 
the  grass.  They  were  too  far  forward  for  the 
stretcher-bearers  to  reach  them  for  many  hours  yet. 
There  was  no  one  with  the  means  or  time  to  spend 
upon  them;  we  were  all  fighting-men,  under  orders 
to  press  on  at  any  moment.  Nevertheless  our  gun- 
ners slipped  down  from  the  limbers  and  went  among 
them,  pouring  the  last  of  their  water  between  their 
parching  lips.  At  the  sight  of  their  suffering  an  il- 
logical anger  seized  us  against  the  brutes  who  had 
done  this  to  men  who  were  ours.  We  did  not  reason 
that  we  also  were  trying  to  wound  and  kill;  we  only 
felt  a  blazing  indignation  that  those  boys,  who  had 
passed  through  our  guns  cheering  so  gallantly  in  the 
early  morning,  should  lie  so  silent  now.  After  this, 
when  an  enemy  asked  for  water,  we  turned  from 
him  in  contempt;  whatever  drops  we  had  to  spare 
were  for  our  friends.  Mounted  and  eager  to  go 
forward,  we  sat  pitilessly  among  the  dying  enemy. 

We  were  there  not  to  show  mercy,  but  to  avenge. 

The  sun  grew  dark  while  we  waited;  then  rapidly 
the  rain  descended.  We  caught  it  in  our  cupped 
hands  and  on  our  tongues  as  it  dripped  from  the 
edge  of  our  steel  helmets.  The  wounded  in  the 
grass  lay  back  with  their  blackened  lips  wide  apart, 
sucking  in  the  moisture  which  the  heavens,  indif- 
ferently impartial,  allowed  to  fall  on  both  enemies 
and  friends. 

Tubby  and  his  signallers  had  again  gone  forward 
to  make  connections  with  the  infantry.  I  had  ar- 
ranged with  him  that  we  would  follow  in  close  sup- 


THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET         213" 

port  the  moment  he  sent  back  word  that  the  advance 
had  commenced.  By  the  number  of  planes  that  were 
in  the  air  we  knew  that  the  moment  was  at  hand. 

I  glanced  back  at  my  men,  trying  to  estimate  how 
they  had  been  affected  by  the  scenes  which  they  had 
already  witnessed.  In  trench-warfare  the  gunners 
and  drivers  rarely  see  a  battlefield  until  long  after 
the  wounded  have  been  collected  and  carried  back. 
They  never  see  their  own  infantry  in  the  act  of  at- 
tacking, and  they  never  see  the  bursting  of  their  own 
shells.  In  a  few  minutes  all  these  new  experiences 
were  to  be  theirs.  There  were  no  signs  of  trepi- 
dation on  their  faces  —  only  an  expression  of  stern 

and  happy  elation. On  the  top  of  the  bank  one 

of  Tubby's  mounted  signallers  appeared,  waving 
his  flag.  I  gave  the  order  to  "  Walk,  March,"  then 
to  trot,  and  we  were  off. 

For  the  first  half  mile  we  could  see  nothing  very 
unusual.  In  front  of  us  and  on  every  side,  climbing 
a  gentle  slope  to  the  sky-line,  was  a  vast  wheatfield 
scarcely  trampled.  Here  and  there  we  saw  a  fallen 
man,  who  seemed  only  to  be  taking  his  rest.  As  far 
as  evidences  of  battle  were  concerned,  we  might 
have  been  out  on  manoeuvres.  As  we  neared  the 
sky-line,  I  halted  the  guns  and  rode  forward  with 
my  signallers.  Over  the  crest  a  very  different  sight 
presented  itself.  The  wheatfield  ended  and  a 
splendid  stretch  of  country,  green  and  cool,  re- 
sembling a  parkland,  commenced.  Floating  like 
islands  in  the  greenness  were  dense  clumps  of  trees. 
On  the  farthest  edge  of  the  plain  were  deep  ravines, 


214        THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

church  spires  and  the  roofs  of  houses.  The  atmos- 
a  ridge  and  barriers  of  woods,  above  which  were 
phere,  washed  clean  by  rain  and  made  golden  by  the 
afternoon  sunshine,  was  so  clear  that  one's  eye-sight 
carried  for  miles  and  picked  out  each  isolated  move- 
ment. In  the  foreground  our  infantry  wandered  in 
apparently  leisurely  fashion,  going  forward  in  little 
groups  of  from  five  to  ten.  Every  now  and  then  a 
shell  would  burst  near  them  or  the  turf  would  fly 
up  in  spurts  of  dust  where  a  machine-gun  had  been 
brought  to  bear  on  them.  Then  they  would  scatter, 
throwing  themselves  flat.  Presently  some  of  them 
would  rise  and  wander  on  again;  those  who  did  not 
rise  would  roll  over  once  or  twice,  as  a  man  does 
when  he  settles  himself  in  bed,  and  then,  having 
found  his  comfort,  lies  motionless.  The  thing  was 
so  quickly  done  that,  for  the  beholder,  it  was  robbed 
of  its  terror. 

In  front  of  the  infantry  the  cavalry  were  in  action. 
They  pricked  in  and  out  the  clumps  of  trees,  not 
galloping  or  even  trotting,  but  unhurriedly,  as  if 
out  for  an  afternoon's  pleasure.  The  sun  shone  on 
their  drawn  blades  and,  over  the  green  distance,  at 
intervals  their  trumpets  sounded. 

Ahead  of  the  cavalry  the  tanks  nosed  round  the 
edges  of  the  woods,  dragging  their  bellies  along  the 
ground  like  satiated  dragons.  Now  and  then  they 
spat  fire  and  were  lost  to  sight  in  undergrawth  and 
deep  shadows;  usually  when  they  re-appeared,  there 
were  little  dots  of  smoke-gray  pigmies  fleeing  calam- 
itously before  them.  Along  the  ridge  on  the  far 


THE   TEST    OF    SCARLET         215 

horizon  a  road  ran,  which  was  black  with  escaping 
ants.  Out  of  the  ravines  and  gorges,  leading  up  to 
the  road,  more  panic-stricken  ants  swarmed  tu- 
multuously.  Above  them,  darting  and  swooping 
like  swallows  after  gnats,  flew  our  bombing-planes 
and  scouts.  It  was  all  very  sylvan  and  pic- 
turesque—  more  like  a  pageant  which  had  been 
rehearsed  and  staged  than  the  most  dramatic  hap- 
pening in  a  war  which  had  excelled  all  other  wars  in 
drama. 

Half  a  mile  away  a  flag  began  to  wave;  I  read 
the  signal  and  turned  back  to  lead  my  guns  into 
action.  As  we  came  out  of  the  wheatfield  at  the 
gallop  a  general  tried  to  stop  us,  shouting  questions 
as  to  where  we  were  going.  We  simply  pointed 
ahead  and  went  by  him  without  slackening  our 
pace.  We  downed  trail  behind  a  hedge  and  com- 
menced firing  over  open  sights;  our  target  was  the 
enemy  transport  retreating  along  the  ridge.  As  our 
shrapnel  began  to  burst  in  little  puffs  of  smoke  above 
the  heads  of  an  enemy  already  mad  with  terror,  the 
wildest  confusion  resulted.  Lorries  were  ditched. 
Batteries  became  entangled.  Horses  stampeded 
through  the  crowds  of  flying  men,  knocking  them 
down  and  grinding  their  bodies  beneath  the  wheels 
of  the  vehicles. 

The  enthusiasm  of  our  gunners  rose  to  fever- 
pitch  when  for  the  first  time  they  could  see  the 
havoc  which  their  shells  were  working.  They  be- 
came careless  of  their  own  safety  and  indifferent  to 
death,  if  only  we  could  push  the  Boche  further  back 


216        THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

and  make  the  day  completely  victorious.  The  same 
self-forgetfulness  was  seen  on  every  hand.  Out 
there  in  that  green  picture-world,  the  cavalry  were 
pushing  impetuously  far  ahead.  They  were  so  im- 
patient to  get  forward  that,  when  they  were  held  up 
by  machine-gun  nests,  they  would  not  wait  for  the 
other  arms  to  come  up,  but  were  charging  the  storm 
of  lead  with  their  naked  steel  and  riding  to  almost 
certain  annihilation.  V.  C.s  were  being  won  under 
our  eyes  by  men  whose  heroism  would  not  even  be 
recorded.  And  no  one  cared  —  no  one  coveted 
glory  for  himself.  We  were  fanatics,  lifted  far 
above  self-seeking.  It  was  the  game  that  counted. 
Dust  we  were  and  to  dust  we  would  return;  but  the 
triumph  of  this  day  would  live  forever. 

Distracting  us  from  the  white  intensity  of  our 
effort  we  heard  the  droning  of  an  engine  and  saw  a 
shadow  settling  down;  above  our  heads  an  aero- 
plane was  hovering  so  low  that  we  could  see  the 
moving  lips  of  the  pilot.  A  message,  attached  to 
yellow  streamers,  came  drifting  down.  When  the 
pilot  was  sure  that  we  had  received  it,  he  again 
flew  off  up  front.  The  message  gave  us  the  map- 
location  of  a  machine-gun  in  action,  which  we  were 
asked  to  do  our  best  to  knock  out.  Soon  Tubby 
was  again  seen  frantically  signalling.  He  was  telling 
us  that  the  enemy,  while  undoubtedly  in  full  retreat, 
was  leaving  behind  him  picked  suicide-troops  to  hold 
machine-gun  nests  and  strong-points.  These  people 
were  lying  doggo  till  our  tanks  had  gone  past  them 
and  were  then  resurrecting  themselves  and  mowing 


THE   TEST    OF    SCARLET         217 

down  our  men.  We  limbered  up  and  once  more 
went  forward,  the  signallers  and  myself  going  in 
advance,  the  guns  and  ammunition-wagons  strung 
out  at  safe  intervals  behind  us. 

We  came  across  the  parkland  to  a  deep  cutting, 
which  was  the  entrance  to  a  gorge.  There  was 
nothing  to  warn  one  that  the  cutting  was  there  until 
the  moment  before  he  stood  gazing  down  into  it. 
The  hollow  between  the  two  banks  was  full  of  dead 
cavalry.  Some  of  the  horses  were  sitting  up  on  their 
haunches  like  dogs,  swaying  their  heads  slowly  from 
side  to  side.  One  by  one  they  would  struggle  to 
rise,  only  to  sink  back  in  despair.  The  riders  lay 
beside  their  mounts,  with  their  sword-arms  flung 
wide  and  the  sunlight  flickering  along  their  blades. 
From  the  semi-circle  in  which  they  were  spread  out, 
one  judged  that  they  had  made  their  charge  fan- 
wise,  concentrating  as  they  neared  the  object  of  their 
attack.  One  man  out  of  so  many  had  reached  his 
objective;  he  had  ridden  down  the  Hun  machine- 
gunner,  burying  the  gun  beneath  the  body  of  his 
horse  and  sabring  the  gunner  as  he  fell. 

And  these  were  the  magnificent  exponents  of  glory 
whom  I  had  seen  in  their  pride  that  morning,  pranc- 
ing through  the  polluted  village  so  capriciously  that 
their  feet  seemed  to  spurn  the  ground.  They  had 
done  their  bit  and  by  their  sacrifice  had  brought  us 
one  step  nearer  to  victory.  It  was  heroic  and  mag- 
nanimous; but,  when  I  remembered  the  beauty  of 
their  vigour  as  they  bounded  to  the  music  of  their 
hunting-calls,  I  could  not  believe  that  any  gain  was 


2i8        THE   TEST    OF    SCARLET 

worth  their  anguish.  The  horrible  unfairness  of  war 
was  all  that  I  could  visualize  —  that  one  man  behind 
a  machine-gun  should  be  able  to  transmute  so  much 
loveliness  into  corruption  in  a  handful  of  seconds. 
And  then  came  another  thought  —  the  desire  for 
revenge. 

There  was  the  sound  of  heavy  firing  further  up  the 
gorge.  Tubby  came  riding  back;  his  right  arm  was 
hanging  loosely  and  a  bullet  had  seared  his  fore- 
head. His  face  was  tense..  The  little  beast  he  rode 
was  flecked  with  blood  and  wildly  excited.  He  broke 
into  a  broad  grin  at  catching  sight  of  me.  "By  the 
Lord  Harry,  we've  got  our  chance,"  he  panted.  "My 
arm!  No,  it's  nothing  —  broken  I  guess.  .  .  . 
There's  a  place  up  here  just  behind  a  bend;  if  we 
can  sneak  a  gun  in  quickly,  we  can  blow  the  stuffing 
out  of  them.  We'll  be  on  to  them  before  they  know 
we're  there.  It's  a  regular  nest,  four  or  five  of  'em 
spurting  away  like  blazes.  They've  nailed  our  chaps 
so  that  they  can't  budge.  But  if  we  look  lively,  it's 
a  cinch;  we've  got  them  cold." 

Following  him  cautiously,  we  came  to  the  bend 
he  had  mentioned  Twenty  yards  short,  we  un- 
hooked and  ran  the  gun  up  by  hand.  Had  we 
driven  straight  on  to  the  position,  the  heads  of  the 
horses  would  have  shown  up  and  we  should  have 
been  wiped  out  before  we  had  fired  our  first  round. 
As  it  was  there  was  a  bunch  of  scrub,  just  tall 
enough  to  hide  us.  Peering  through  the  branches, 
we  could  see  about  five  hundred  yards  distant  a 
barricade  constructed  of  timbers  and  sandbags,  from 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         219 

which  came  vicious  sprays  of  death.  Repeated 
endeavors  had  to  be  made  to  rush  it.  In  front  and 
all  around  lay  our  fallen  infantry,  their  rifles  with 
fixed  bayonets  tossed  aside  and  their  fingers  dug 
into  the  turf.  The  postures  in  which  they  had  col- 
lapsed were  violently  grotesque.  There  was  for- 
lornness,  but  little  dignity  about  their  twisted  atti- 
tudes. 

Behind  the  sandbags  there  was  a  sense  of  watch- 
ing eyes;  but  only  the  sense  —  one  saw  no  move- 
ment. The  men  who  kept  guard  there  were  brave. 
They  hadn't  a  chance  in  the  world.  They  must 
have  known  that  their  fate  was  sealed  from  the  first. 
They  were  selling  their  lives  dearly  that  their  com- 
rades, fleeing  behind  them,  might  gain  time.  Those 
comrades  would  never  know  how  they  had  died  — 
would  never  be  able  to  thank  them.  There  would 
be  no  Iron  Crosses  to  reward  their  valour  —  they 
would  be  lucky  if  they  were  awarded  the  decency 
of  a  grave.  We  acknowledged  their  courage,  and 
we  hated  them. 

Our  first  shot  went  plus,  our  second  minus,  our 
third  scored  a  direct  hit  on  the  barricade.  As  the 
sandbags  crumbled  and  the  gray  uniforms  became 
plain,  our  infantry  leapt  from  their  places  of  hiding, 
charging  up  the  gorge  with  their  cold  bayonets.  We 
saw  hands  thrust  up  in  an  appeal  for  mercy,  then 
nothing  but  khaki,  stabbing  and  cheering  wildly. 
When  we  had  hooked  in  and  rode  by  five  minutes 
later,  four  men  in  smoke-gray  lay  watching  the  sky 
with  unblinking  eyes.  They  were  decent  looking 


220        THE   TEST   OF    SCARLET 

men,  with  flaxen  hair  and  high  complexions.  They 
were  perfectly  ordinary  individuals,  with  nothing 
either  noticeably  noble  or  brutal  in  their  appearance. 
Had  we  encountered  them  as  waiters  in  a  London  or 
New  York  restaurant,  they  would  probably  have 
proved  entirely  in  keeping  with  their  situation.  By 
the  accident  of  war  they  had  been  called  upon  to 
perform  a  deed  quite  as  desperate  as  that  of  the 
Roman  Horatius,  who  kept  the  bridge  against  un- 
numbered foes.  The  gorge  was  one  of  the  keys  to 
the  great  plain  across  which  the  Huns  were  retiring. 
These  four  men,  single-handed,  with  no  hope  of 
saving  their  own  lives,  had  held  up  our  advance  for 
half  an  hour  against  repeated  infantry  and  cavalry 
charges,  accounting  for  fully  twenty  times  their  own 
number  in  casualties.  It  was  an  act  of  superb 
sacrifice,  which  could  only  have  been  inspired  by 
the  highest  sense  of  duty  and  patriotism.  Had  we 
met  them  in  fable,  we  should  have  done  them  hom- 
age; meeting  them  where  we  did,  we  clubbed  them 
like  rats  escaping  from  a  cage.  Even  now  that 
they  were  dead  we  detested  them. 

At  the  top  of  the  gorge  we  struck  a  level  stretch 
of  country,  which  appeared  to  be  surrounded  by  a 
solid  belt  of  forest;  but  from  the  map  we  learnt 
that  the  forest  was  actually  made  up  of  separate 
woods  between  which  passed  channels  of  sward. 
Hidden  in  these  separate  woods  were  towns  and 
villages,  the  spires  of  whose  churches  peeped  above 
the  trees  and  speared  the  horizon.  Across  the  plain 
ran  a  net- work  of  white  roads,  some  of  which  were 


THE   TEST    OF    SCARLET         221 

mere  tracks  trampled  out  of  the  chalk  by  military 
traffic,  others  of  which  dated  back  to  the  days  be- 
fore the  coming  of  the  Germans.  The  main  road 
was  the  one  which  we  had  shelled  from  our  first 
position.  It  was  littered  with  men,  horses,  broken 
limbers,  guns  and  abandoned  transport.  A  hospital- 
tent  stood  at  a  road- juncture  with  the  Red  Cross  flag 
still  flying.  Whatever  it  had  been  used  for,  it  had 
been  stripped  naked  —  not  a  cot  or  a  bandage  had 
been  left.  We  cast  our  eyes  across  the  green  level 
for  miles;  there  were  all  the  signs  of  recent  frenzy, 
but  nothing  stirred.  It  was  uncanny,  this  sudden 
disappearance  of  men  and  armaments.  There  was 
fighting  behind  us  —  we  could  hear  that.  There 
was  fighting  to  the  right  and  left;  but  before  us 
only  the  silence.  We  began  to  suspect  that  we  had 
pressed  on  too  hurriedly  and  were  in  front  of  our 
own  attack.  This  suspicion  was  strengthened  when 
one  of  our  own  batteries,  far  in  the  rear,  opened 
fire  on  us,  mistaking  us  for  the  enemy.  To  avoid 
their  shells,  we  clapped  spurs  to  our  horses  and 
went  forward  for  yet  another  mile  at  the  gallop. 
Then  we  halted  behind  a  cutting  to  consider  matters. 
Our  position  was  trying.  We  were  utterly  ex- 
hausted and  only  upheld  by  the  excitement.  We 
had  food  for  neither  horses  nor  men.  The  water  in 
the  men's  bottles  had  been  expended  on  the 
wounded;  the  horses  had  had  nothing  to  drink  since 
noon.  There  was  very  little  chance  of  the  Major's 
keeping  his  promise  and  sending  us  up  our  rations; 
the  battery  must  have  moved  by  now  and  neither 


222         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

they  nor  we  had  any  knowledge  as  to  each  other's 
whereabouts.  To  add  to  our  complications  Tubby 's 
arm  proved  to  have  been  badly  smashed  by  a 
machine-gun  bullet  and,  though  he  would  not  own 
it,  he  was  suffering  intensely.  The  light  was  be- 
ginning to  fail  and  within  two  hours  darkness  would 
have  settled.  It  was  absolutely  essential  that  we 
should  find  food  and  water,  and  discover  what  was 
the  military  situation.  If  we  were  actually  in  front 
of  our  attack,  then  it  was  evident  that  our  people 
had  lost  touch  with  the  enemy;  in  which  case,  under 
the  cover  of  night,  the  enemy  was  likely  to  return. 
If  he  did,  we  and  our  outfit  would  be  killed  or 
captured. 

Tubby  refused  to  stay  with  the  guns  and  rest,  so 
we  started  out  in  separate  directions  to  reconnoitre. 
Tubby  went  mounted  on  account  of  his  arm  being 
in  a  sling;  I  went  on  foot,  since  thus  I  should  afford 
a  smaller  target.  Throughout  the  day,  as  our  diffi- 
culties and  exhaustion  had  increased,  he  had  grown 
gayer  and  more  reckless.  He  had  treated  his  broken 
arm  as  nothing;  in  the  presence  of  his  gallant  high 
spirits  none  of  us  had  dared  to  recognise  hardship. 
As  he  rode  away  he  flung  back  his  old  jest,  "How's 
your  father?"  Several  of  the  men,  not  to  be  out- 
done in  this  game  of  brave  pretence,  shouted  after 
him,  "He's  all  right,  sir.  Till  the  war  ends  he's  got 
his  baggy  pants  on." 

My  direction  took  me  over  to  a  long  line  of  woods 
on  the  right,  from  which  came  the  spiteful  sound  of 
rifles  firing  in  volleys.  The  sun  had  begun  to  set; 


THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET         223 

as  I  glanced  across  the  plain  I  could  see  Tubby, 
trotting  far  out  into  a  sea  of  shadows  and  greenness. 
I  felt  misgivings  for  his  safety;  we  had  no  informa- 
tion as  to  what  lay  ahead.  Presently  I  met  an  in- 
fantryman with  a  bandaged  forehead,  who  confirmed 
my  doubts.  He  told  me  that  he  and  fourteen  others 
had  pressed  on,  keeping  the  enemy  in  sight  and  sup- 
posing that  the  rest  of  the  advance  was  following. 
The  enemy  had  made  a  stand ;  it  was  then  they  had 
discovered  that  they  were  out  of  touch  and  unsup- 
ported. "My  mates,"  he  said,  "I  don't  know 
whether  they're  alive  or  dead.  They  were  holding 
out  when  I  left;  they  sent  me  back  for  help.  Fritzie 
was  getting  ready  to  counter-attack.  He  may  be 
coming  any  moment."  He  looked  back  apprehen- 
sively and,  without  waiting  to  say  more,  staggered 
on.  I  reached  and  entered  my  wood. 

Bullets  were  tearing  through  the  leaves  and 
branches,  going  by  with  the  hiss  of  serpents.  Be- 
neath the  shadow  of  the  trees  I  found  stables  and 
a  camp;  but  the  Huns,  before  they  had  cleared  out, 
had  loaded  up  every  particle  of  food  and  forage. 
Nothing  but  the  bare  buildings  were  left.  Follow- 
ing a  track,  I  came  to  water-troughs,  but  it  would 
be  impossible  to  lead  our  horses  down  to  them 
while  the  rifle-fire  lasted.  On  the  farther  edge  of 
the  wood  I  came  across  our  infantry. 

They  were  lying  flat  on  their  stomachs  and  crawl- 
ing from  point  to  point  on  their  hands  and  knees, 
sniping  at  the  enemy.  They  were  very  few  in  num- 
bers, over  fifty  per  cent  of  their  force  having  fallen 


224        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

during  the  day.  By  their  vigilance  and  the  rapidity 
of  their  fire  they  were  trying  to  create  the  impres- 
sion that  they  were  stronger  than  they  were.  I 
found  their  colonel.  He  was  not  certain,  but  be- 
lieved they  were  the  Front-line.  Th  tanks  and  the 
cavalry  had  disappeared  entirely.  They  might  be 
still  pursuing;  they  might  have  been  captured; 
they  all  might  have  become  casualties.  At  any 
rate,  the  line  of  these  woods  was  the  front  that  he 
intended  to  maintain  throughout  the  night;  so  I  ar- 
ranged to  run  a  telephone  wire  up  to  him  and  to 
stand  to  throughout  the  hours  of  darkness  in  case  of 
a  surprise  attack.  One  definite  piece  of  information 
I  gleaned  from  him  —  that  his  left  flank  was  "up 
in  the  air."  Any  time  that  the  enemy  discovered 
the  fact,  he  could  get  round  behind  this  handful  of 
men;  in  the  direction  which  Tubby  had  taken  there 
was  nothing  between  himself  and  the  enemy. 

Hurrying  back  through  the  .wood  I  found,  when  I 
came  out  on  the  farther  side,  that  my  section  had 
followed  me.  While  I  had  been  gone,  the  sergeants 
had  also  learnt  that  nothing  stood  between  them- 
selves and  the  Hun.  When  I  asked  them  whether 
they  had  news  of  Mr.  Grain  they  shook  their  heads ; 
the  last  they  had  seen  of  him  was  an  insignificant 
dot  dwindling  into  the  distant  landscape.  They 
had  left  two  mounted  men  in  the  cutting  to  guide 
him  on  to  us  if  he  returned. 

The  horses  were  "all  in"  by  this  time  from  lack 
of  water,  so  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  for  some 
of  us  to  take  a  chance  and  go  down  to  the  trough 
with  buckets.  I  lost  two  of  my  best  drivers  there. 


THE   TEST    OF   SCARLET         225 

We  had  one  piece  of  luck  to  console  us.  In  my 
absence  the  men  had  run  across  some  of  our  fallen 
cavalry  and  had  collected  sufficient  oats  from  their 
feed-bags  to  go  the  rounds  and  sufficient  rations 
from  the  haversacks  of  the  dead  to  last  the  men. 

Just  as  we  had  finished  watering  and  feeding,  we 
saw  a  tank  lumbering  homewards  round  the  point  of 
the  wood  through  the  dusk.  I  galloped  out  to  meet 
it.  The  officer  in  charge  halted  and  put  his  head 
out  on  seeing  me  approaching. 

"Hulloa,  old  bean,"  he  laughed,  "what  are  you 
doing  up  here  all  on  your  wild  lone?  You  know 
there's  nobody  in  front." 

I  explained  matters  and  asked  if  he  had  seen  any- 
one like  Tubby. 

"A  little  fat  chap  with  his  arm  in  a  sling?"  he 
asked.  "Yes,  I  saw  him.  I  shouted  to  him  and 
tried  to  stop  him,  but  all  he  did  was  to  ask  me  a  silly 
question  about  my  father.  I  don't  think  he  was  all 
there.  He  rode  on  towards  the  village  from  which 
I  was  escaping.  It  was  empty  when  first  I  entered, 
so  I  waddled  about  for  half  an  hour  mucking  things 
up.  By  that  time  the  Huns  had  found  out  that  we 
weren't  following  and  they  were  coming  back.  So  I 
skedaddled.  If  I  were  you  I  wouldn't  go  and  look 
for  your  friend  —  Hulloa,  what's  that?  You'd  bet- 
ter duck!" 

That  was  a  burst  of  bullets,  coming  from  a  clump 
of  trees  to  the  left.  The  chap  was  right;  the  enemy 
was  sneaking  back. 

I  wheeled  the  guns  about  and  went  off  at  the  trot 


226        THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

to  a  little  copse  in  which  I  had  arranged  with  the 
infantry  colonel  to  take  up  my  position  for  the 
night.  It  was  pitchy  black  when  we  arrived;  the 
place  stank  of  blood.  It  was  already  occupied  by 
sleeping  men;  they  did  not  speak  to  us,  but  we 
tripped  over  them  in  the  darkness  and  felt  them  be- 
side us  when  we  lay  down. 

Having  unlimbered  our  guns  and  got  them  on  for 
line,  we  ran  a  wire  up  front  to  the  colonel  so  as  to 
keep  in  touch  and  open  fire  on  the  second  if  required. 
We  divided  our  men  into  watches ;  they  were  wearied 
out,  for  it  was  many  nights  since  they  had  slept. 
They  lay  down  with  all  their  equipment  on,  so  as 
to  lose  no  time  in  the  event  of  an  alarm.  The  girths 
of  the  saddles  were  loosened,  but  none  of  the  har- 
ness was  removed  from  the  horses'  backs.  If  the 
enemy  broke  through,  the  first  news  we  were  likely 
to  get  would  be  when  they  were  upon  us.  Our  lives 
and  those  of  the  infantry  might  depend  upon  our 
promptitude  of  action. 

It  was  just  before  dawn  that  Tubby's  horse  re- 
joined us  riderless.  There  was  blood  on  the  saddle 
and  the  reins  were  broken  as  though  the  little  beast 
had  wrenched  itself  free  by  jumping  back  from 
the  thing  to  which  it  had  been  tied.  It  was  a  bron- 
cho trick  it  had,  which  was  well  known  to  all  the  bat- 
tery. When  in  our  lines  it  was  never  fastened,  but 
allowed  to  stand.  The  broken  lines  proved  that  it 
had  been  in  strangers'  hands;  Tubby  would  never 
have  tied  it.  When  the  men  asked  it  what  had  hap- 
pened to  its  master,  it  looked  at  them  with  quivering 


THE   TEST    OF    SCARLET         227 

nostrils  and  frightened  eyes  and  then,  turning  its 
intelligent  head,  gazed  back  over  the  way  that  it 
had  come. 

With  the  first  of  the  daylight  we  discovered  why 
it  was  that  the  men  with  whom  we  had  shared  the 
wood  had  been  so  very  silent  —  why  they  had  not 
spoken  when  we  had  tripped  over  them,  or  been 
disturbed  when  we  had  lain  down  beside  them. 

Sticking  out  of  the  pocket  of  one  of  them  was  a 
London  daily  of  fairly  recent  date.  I  picked  it  up 
in  mere  curiosity  and  glanced  through  its  pages. 
Then  suddenly,  for  fear  anyone  should  want  to 
borrow  it,  I  hid  it  away  in  my  tunic.  It  contained 
an  extraordinary  story,  affecting  the  honour  of  a 
man  I  loved  well  —  an  account  of  the  police-court 
proceedings  in  the  case  of  Mrs.  Percy  Dragott. 

An  odd  way  to  get  news  of  the  secrets  of  a  pal, 
with  whom  you  eat  and  risk  your  life  daily  —  by 
rifling  the  pocket  of  a  stranger,  whom  you  had 
thought  to  be  sleeping  and  had  discovered  to  be 
dead! 


THE  rest  of  the  battery  caught  us  up  this  morn- 
ing in  our  copse  which  we  tenant  with  the 
dead.  We  are  resting  to-day,  holding  the  line  in 
depth,  while  the  troops  who  were  behind  us  yester- 
day, have  passed  through  us  and  beyond.  Far  out 
in  the  blue  we  can  catch  the  rapid  thud  of  their 
drum-fire.  With  them  it  is,  as  it  was  with  us  yester- 
day, thirst,  heroism,  cruelty,  magnanimity  mingling 
in  an  ecstatic  trance,  while  the  August  woods  drip 
scarlet  with  men's  triumphant  carelessness  of  dying. 
From  here  the  orchestra  of  murder  has  passed,  leav- 
ing as  record  of  its  passage  the  brief  putrescence  of 
the  earthly  part  of  sacrifice  guarded  by  the  shadowy 
sunlit  silence. 

Is  it  worth  it?  What  does  it  all  mean,  this  furious 
display  of  homicidal  passion?  It's  easy  for  the  arm- 
chair crusaders  who  sit  at  home  to  prate  about  the 
glory  of  war.  One  glimpse  at  the  landscape  on 
which  I  gaze  would  bruise  their  lips  with  reality  and 
wash  the  mountebank  valour  with  tears  from  their 
eyes.  We  who  have  seen  war  for  what  it  is,  will  al- 
ways speak  of  it  as  the  filthiest  of  jobs,  fit  only  for 
human  orang-outangs  or  maniacs.  A  woman  risks 
her  life  that  a  man  may  be  born.  It  takes  twenty- 
five  long  years  of  love  to  build  his  mind  and  spirit 
into  nianliness.  What  glory  can  there  be  in  tear- 

228 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET         229 

ing  the  carefully  planned  strength  of  nations  bar- 
barously limb  from  limb  in  a  second?  This  war  may 
have  been  unavoidable,  but  our  political  and  journal- 
istic prophets  have  no  right  to  dress  it  up  to  appear 
what  it  is  not  —  war  is  an  unclean  orgy  of  jungle- 
cannibals  revelling  in  the  obscenity  of  entrails  and 
blood.  Half  the  time  it  is  not  even  brave;  there  is 
nothing  brave  in  smothering  a  front-line  with  shells 
which  are  fired  from  miles  behind  the  danger;  there 
is  nothing  brave  in  overwhelming  a  demoralized 
enemy  by  sheer  weight  of  numbers. 

Yesterday  we  slaughtered  men  like  vermin  and 
with  as  little  thought.  We  were  urged  on  by  an  im- 
pelling rage,  which  made  us  almost  divine  in  our 
destroying  eloquence.  What  we  did  was  right;  the 
feeling  I  have  to-day  is /only  the  reaction  of  dis- 
gust. That  I  should  be  able  to  feel  disgust  and  yet 
go  on  fighting,  proves  more  than  anything  else  the 
righteousness  of  our  cause. 

We  shall  win  the  war  for  freedom,  but  at  what  a 
cost!  If  the  British,  who  have  already  perished, 
were  to  march  twenty  abreast  from  sunrise  to  sun- 
set, it  would  take  them  ten  days  to  pass  a  given 
point.  It  would  take  the  French  eleven  days,  the 
Russians  five  weeks,  the  whole  of  the  Allied  dead 
two  and  a  half  months,  and  the  skeletons  of  the 
fallen  enemy  six  weeks  more.  If  all  the  armies  of 
men  of  whatever  nations  who  have  died  fighting 
since  August,  1914,  were  to  march  in  review,  twenty 
abreast,  before  the  grand-stand  of  the  living,  it 
would  take  them  four  months  to  pass.  This  would 


23o        THE   TEST   OF    SCARLET 

not  include  the  old  men,  women  and  children  who 
have  perished  from  disease  and  privation,  from  mili- 
tary brutalities,  from  the  sinking  of  ships  and  the 
haphazard  cruelties  of  shell-fire  and  bombs.  Yet 
despite  the  tremendous  thought  of  such  a  procession, 
the  actual  pathos  of  one  man  smashed  in  battle  is 
more  appalling. 

Comparatively  few  people  have  seen  that  sight. 
If  they  had,  the  war  would  end  tomorrow.  The 
generals  who  plan  our  battles  rarely  see  it;  they  are 
too  far  back.  The  war-correspondents  who  describe 
our  battles  do  not  see  it;  they  collect  their  informa- 
tion second-hand  at  canteens,  dressing-stations  and 
Army  Headquarters.  Our  civilians  only  read  the 
correspondents'  descriptions.  So  it  goes  —  the  more 
hands  through  which  the  news  passes  and  the  further 
back  it  travels,  the  more  the  vileness  of  the  happen- 
ing becomes  misted  over  with  lies  and  transmuted 
into  something  magnificent.  Each  informant,  in  the 
proportion  that  he  is  removed  from  the  terror,  is 
the  more  anxious  to  pose  as  an  heroic  eye-witness. 
The  only  eye-witnesses  are  the  men  who  do  the 
dying,  and  they  do  not  feel  themselves  to  be  heroes. 
They  are  under  fire  on  account  of  the  accidents  of 
medical  fitness,  youth  and  a  properly  developed 
sense  of  duty.  They  are  people  of  inferior  rank  and 
of  no  social  or  military  consequence.  They  are  not 
literary,  oratorical,  articulate.  Because  they  die,  the 
world  never  learns  what  war  is  like.  Even  though 
they  bear  charmed  lives  and  survive,  they  are 
muzzled  by  Army  orders  and  the  vigilance  of  the 


THE   TEST   OF    SCARLET         231 

censor.  Not  a  whisper  of  the  truth  escapes.  In 
hospital  or  on  leave  they  are  eager  to  forget;  more- 
over, they  quickly  learn  that  the  Sir  Galahad  mis- 
conceptions of  civilians  make  their  facts  sound  like 
the  whimperings  of  cowards.  So  they  strike  the 
attitude  which  is  required  of  them,  pretending  that 
there's  a  sporting  fascination  about  blowing  and 
being  blown  into  atoms. 

I  glance  up  from  my  writing.  Wherever  my 
eyes  wander  they  dwell  on  some  shocking  detail  of 
denied  beauty  or  tattered  flesh.  From  the  shadow 
of  trees  and  through  parted  grass,  faces  which  yes- 
terday were  vivacious  with  health,  stare  vacantly  at 
me  growing  green  and  yellow.  They  are  more  still 
than  the  sleepers  of  a  Rip  Van  Winkle  land.  Their 
shoulders  are  hunched,  their  knees  drawn  up,  their 
hands  clenched.  Beside  them  little  piles  of  paper 
flutter  or  dance  away  like  white  butterflies  drifted 
through  the  sunshine.  The  wind  stoops  over  them 
like  an  invisible  rag-picker,  curiously  fingering  the 
scattered  pages. 

Early  this  morning  some  of  the  troops  who 
passed  through  us  to  the  fight,  ransacked  the  pockets 
of  their  fallen  comrades.  The  objects  of  their 
search  were  mainly  matches  and  cigarettes,  but  in 
some  cases  they  exchanged  boots  and  puttees.  I 
suppose  they  argued  that  you  cannot  rob  a  man  who 
is  dead;  he  has  no  further  use  for  his  possessions. 
Sooner  or  later  some  one  is  bound  to  rob  him;  that 
being  the  case,  there  is  no  one  who  can  do  it  with 
less  offence  than  men  who  are  shortly  to  die  them- 


232        THE   TEST   OF    SCARLET 

selves.  Nevertheless  it's  a  strange  and  brutal 
logic,  for  these  very  men  may  themselves  be  equally 
stark  and  incapable  of  resentment  by  sundown. 
Moreover,  they  showed  an  unnecessary  callousness 
in  their  borrowing,  when  they  scattered  letters  from 
sweethearts,  wives  and  mothers  to  the  four  winds  of 
heaven.  In  peace-times  we  keep  the  memory  of  our 
friends  alive  with  flowers;  in  war,  the  moment  the 
breath  has  left  a  comrade's  body  he  ceases  to  be 
human  and  becomes  the  victim  of  disrespect. 

What  a  chamber  of  horrors  one  day's  fighting 
has  made  of  these  woods!  No  human  ingenuity  can 
compete  with  the  diabolical  inventiveness  of  death. 
No  two  postures  are  alike  in  this  array  of  corpses; 
each  one  strikes  a  different  note  of  agony.  Why 
should  we  have  come  so  far,  from  Canada,  Australia 
and  the  wideness  of  the  world,  to  create  this  French 
landscape  into  such  a  slaughter-house?  Why,  above 
all  things,  should  we  still  be  willing  to  hand  over 
our  bodies  to  add  one  touch  more  to  its  martyred 
picturesqueness?  We  must  be  drunk  with  visions 
so  to  carve  out  of  living  flesh  the  image  of  our  des- 
potic idealism.  Saints  or  devils,  whichever  we  are, 
war  has  made  us  more  than  men. 

My  mind  is  full  of  thoughts  of  Tubby.  He  has 
not  returned.  There  is  no  news  of  him.  He  will 
not  return  now.  He  may  be  a  prisoner.  He  may 
be  lying  up  forward  wounded.  He  may  be  sprawled 
on  the  ground,  like  one  of  these  pitiful  waxworks  by 
which  I  am  surrounded.  Probably  we  shall  never 
know  his  fate.  Why  did  he  come  to  the  war?  What 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         233 

hidden  spark  of  divinity  kindled  his  spirit  to  a 
flame?  He  never  let  us  inspect  anything  but  the 
earthy  side  of  his  nature.  His  faults,  had  he  lived 
to  be  middle-aged,  would  probably  have  hardened 
into  vices.  He  was  typical  of  us  —  an  ordinary, 
pleasant  chap,  a  trifle  specked  with  blackguardism, 
impatient  of  ideals  and  yet  following  in  their  tracks. 
His  worst  weakness  was  his  unbalanced  attitude 
towards  women;  his  kindest  quality  that  he  was  in- 
variably good-tempered  and  generous.  If  he  real- 
ised the  possession  of  a  soul,  he  never  talked  about 
it.  His  last  recorded  utterance,  according  to  the 
tank-officer,  was  an  undignified  catch-phrase  of  the 
streets,  "  How's  your  father?"  Yet,  incredible,  lov- 
able man,  he  rode  out  wounded  to  die  for  others  as 
simply  as  if  he  had  hailed  from  Nazareth. 

We  know  nothing  of  each  other,  we  men  who 
eat  and  sleep,  and  suffer,  and  die  together.  How 
little  we  know  was  illustrated  for  me  by  what  I  learnt 
from  that  newspaper,  picked  out  of  a  dead  man's 
pocket  this  morning. 

The  first  I  heard  of  a  woman  in  Heming's  life 
was  that  day  on  the  Somme  when,  thinking  he  was 
about  to  die,  he  asked  me  to  write  to  Mrs.  Percy 
Dragott.  From  time  to  time  after  that  I  saw  her 
portrait  in  the  English  illustrated  weeklies  and 
gathered  that  she  was  playing  with  war  work,  taking 
part  in  charitable  theatrical  performances,  bazaars 
for  the  mutilated,  garden-parties  for  the  blinded, 
etc.,  —  having  a  thoroughly  enjoyable  time  and 
acquiring  a  reputation  for  patriotic  fervour.  The 


234        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

next  occasion  when  her  name  cropped  up  was  when 
the  Major  read  aloud  to  Heming  the  unconcluded 
account  of  a  tragedy.  In  the  paper  which  I  found 
this  morning,  I  read  that  she  was  on  trial  for  murder. 
Mrs.  Percy  Dragott,  it  seemed,  had  arrived  in 
London  with  no  credentials  several  years  before  the 
outbreak  of  war,  bringing  with  her  an  elderly  hus- 
band, to  whom  she  had  been  recently  married,  who 
had  just  retired  from  an  appointment  in  the  Indian 
Civil  Service.  At  first  by  her  charity,  then  by  her 
beauty  and  finally  by  her  brilliancy  she  had  won  for 
herself  a  place  in  London  society.  At  the  end  of 
two  years  her  husband,  having  served  his  purpose, 
had  died,  leaving  her  free  to  take  full  advantage  of 
her  popularity.  She  was  emphatically  a  man's 
woman  and  had  found  a  ready  welcome  wherever 
brains  were  an  asset,  being  particularly  sought  after 
by  men  in  public  life.  Her  little  house  in  Mayfair, 
run  with  extravagant  taste,  though  no  one  troubled 
to  enquire  where  the  money  came  from,  had  become 
a  kind  of  salon.  The  names  of  the  men  to  whom 
she  had  been  rumoured  to  be  about  to  become  en- 
gaged would  take  two  hands  to  reckon;  they  in- 
cluded artists,  journalists,  soldiers  and  at  least  one 
statesman.  On  looking  back,  a  fact  was  brought  to 
light  which  had  escaped  notice,  namely  that  over 
all  the  men  with  whom  she  had  been  associated  she 
seemed  to  have  spread  a  blight  —  in  one  way  or 
another,  after  dropping  her  acquaintance,  they  had 
each  one  failed.  Yet  until  the  murder  had  oc- 
curred, no  breath  of  scandal  had  touched  her.  Even 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         235 

now  the  crime  would  never  have  been  discovered 
had  not  the  murdered  man  proved  to  be  a  British 
secret  service  agent. 

Colonel  Barton,  as  he  had  called  himself,  had  been 
introduced  to  her  as  a  somewhat  romantic  figure. 
The  account  he  had  given  of  himself  was  that  he 
had  been  captured  at  Gallipoli  and  had  made  a  sen- 
sational escape  from  a  Turkish  prison-camp.  For 
the  first  time  she,  who  had  earned  for  herself  the 
reputation  of  being  the  coldest  woman  in  London, 
seems  to  have  been  fired  with  passion.  Whether 
she  actually  fell  in  love  or  had  only  feigned  to  do 
so  because  she  scented  danger,  it  was  impossible  to 
say.  The  man's  case  was  plain;  he  had  pretended 
to  be  infatuated  with  her  in  order  that  he  might 
trap  her.  He  had  evidently  learnt  all  that  he  wanted 
to  know  and  was  on  the  point  of  exposing  her  to 
the  authorities,  when  he  was  found  dead  in  his  flat. 

At  first  his  death  was  taken  to  be  an  accident.  It 
seemed  that  he  had  fainted  and  in  falling  had  caught 
himself  a  heavy  blow  on  the  left  temple.  But  when 
the  rooms  were  searched,  it  was  found  that  they 
had  been  already  ransacked.  Nothing  that  could 
be  traced  had  been  removed,  but  the  thief  had  been 
identified  as  a  woman  by  an  initialed  handkerchief, 
which  she  had  left  behind  her.  Moreover  she  had 
failed  to  discover  all  the  papers  which  condemned 
her;  lying  full  in  sight  on  the  desk  was  an  unsealed, 
unaddressed  envelope,  containing  the  complete  his- 
tory which  would  have  led  to  her  arrest.  The  con- 
tention of  the  police  was  that  Barton  had  been  done 


236        THE   TEST   OF    SCARLET 

to  death  by  the  popular  and  charitable  society 
beauty. 

Upon  investigation  she  was  proved  to  be  a  British 
subject  in  the  Hun  employ.  Her  motives  for  having 
turned  traitor  and  spy  were  said  to  have  been  in- 
spired by  her  resentment  at  the  injustice  of  her 
birth;  she  was  the  illegitimate  daughter  of  an  Eng- 
lishman of  title,  had  been  well-educated,  kept  always 
abroad  in  the  care  of  strangers  and  had  been  given 
to  understand  through  her  father's  lawyers  that  the 
moment  she  tried  to  hold  direct  communication  with 
her  father's  family  her  income  would  end.  How 
much  of  this  Dragott  knew  when  he  married  her  was 
not  certain.  He  was  a  kindly,  honourable,  well- 
born man  and  had  arrived  at  an  age  when  men  at- 
tain a  wise  leniency  of  view  towards  social  accidents. 
He  became  extremely  fond  of  her  and  brought  her 
back  to  England.  She  saw  her  native  country  for 
the  first  time  in  his  company,  and  she  saw  it  as  a 
spy  in  the  pay  of  Germany.  After  her  husband's 
death,  it  was  German  money  which  had  maintained 
the  elegant  extravagance  of  the  little  house  in  May- 
fair. 

Up  to  this  point  her  story  called  more  for  sym- 
pathy than  condemnation.  If  she,  an  English- 
woman, was  England's  enemy,  it  was  the  unkindness 
of  English  laws  that  had  made  her  that.  The  lone- 
liness and  family  ostracism  of  her  girlhood,  when 
combined  with  her  more  than  ordinary  beauty  of 
body  and  brilliancy  of  mind,  had  warped  her  nature 
into  a  bitter  desire  to  be  revenged.  How  much  her 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         237 

husband  or  any  of  her  subsequent  suitors  had 
guessed  of  her  real  occupation  it  was  difficult  to 
establish;  but  there  was  evidence  which  indicated 
that  more  than  one  of  them  had  suspected.  She 
herself  had  made  the  statement  that  long  before  her 
husband's  death  she  had  tried  to  break  off  her  re- 
lations with  Berlin,  but  had  been  compelled  to  con- 
tinue them  under  threats.  Her  war-philanthropies 
had  not  been  entirely  camouflage;  in  particular  a 
hospital,  which  she  had  established  in  France,  had 
been  the  attempt  of  an  unquiet  conscience  to  make 
atonement.  But  she  had  found  it  impossible  to  dis- 
entangle herself  from  the  web  of  intrigue  in  which 
she  was  caught.  Whatever  she  did,  whether  her  in- 
tentions were  good  or  bad,  was  converted  into  a 
means  of  gathering  information  for  the  enemy.  She 
emphatically  denied  that  she  had  had  any  accom- 
plices; none  of  the  men  who  had  been  in  love  with 
her  had  wilfully  betrayed  their  official  secrets.  It 
was  because  she  had  not  wished  to  involve  others  in 
her  own  tragedy  that  she  had  persistently  refused 
all  offers  of  marriage,  earning  for  herself  the  repu- 
tation of  being  the  coldest  woman  in  London.  Above 
all  things  she  denied  that  she  had  had  anything  to 
do  with  Barton's  death. 

From  the  tone  of  the  press  it  was  evident  that,  in 
spite  of  the  violent  hatreds  of  war-times,  a  good 
deal  of  popular  sympathy  was  felt  for  her.  This 
was  no  doubt  partly  accounted  for  by  her  reckless 
endeavours  to  save  her  friends  at  the  expense  of  in- 
criminating herself  still  further.  All  the  indiscreet 


238        THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

conversations  and  confidences  which  had  taken 
place  across  her  table  were  being  remembered  and 
brought  into  the  evidence.  Some  of  the  biggest  and 
most  trusted  men  in  public  life  would  shortly  find 
themselves  in  the  witness-box.  Among  the  small 
fry  Heming  was  mentioned  as  one  of  her  admirers. 

I'm  wondering  about  Heming  and  trying  to  piece 
the  little  I  know  of  his  relations  with  her  together. 
I'm  sure  he  was  in  love  with  her  to  the  point  of 
marrying  her;  I  believe  she  was  in  love  with  him  to 
the  point  of  confessing  why  she  could  not  consent. 
His  proposal  must  have  taken  place  between  the 
time  when  he  was  so  severely  wounded  at  Vimy  and 
his  unexpected  return  to  the  Front  this  Spring.  It's 
since  his  return  that  he  has  been  so  changed,  so 
that  we've  all  felt  in  our  bones  that  he  had  come 
back  for  only  one  reason  —  to  die.  Poor  Heming, 
all  this  summer  while  he's  been  waiting  for  a  sol- 
dier's death  to  solve  life's  complications,  he  must 
have  been  struggling  between  his  instinct  to  protect 
this  woman  and  his  duty  to  betray  her.  I  understand 
now  his  tenderness  to  Suzette  and  her  child,  who  is 
also  illegitimate. 

If  Heming  does  not  know  this  latest  development, 
it  must  be  kept  from  him.  There'll  be  little  chance 
of  his  seeing  papers  so  long  as  the  offensive  lasts, 
with  its  stealth  and  night-marches.  When  what- 
ever is  left  of  the  battery  marches  out  to  rest,  he 
may  be  lying  quietly,  like  Tubby,  in  some  deserted 
wood  beyond  all  caring.  Tubby's  horrid  little  worry 
was  quickly  forgotten  —  in  the  flash  of  a  second. 


THE   TEST    OF   SCARLET        239 

Poor  Tubby,  with  his  cheerful  grin  and  his,  "How's 
your  father?" 

I  must  speak  to  the  Major  about  Heming  and  get 
him  to  help  me  to  keep  him  in  ignorance. 

Just  as  I  had  finished  writing  this  sentence  I 
looked  up  to  see  Suzette  and  Heming  disappearing 
into  the  wood  where  our  horse-lines  are  hidden.  I 
don't  think  that  there's  any  doubt  that  she's  in- 
fatuated with  him;  wherever  he  goes,  though  her 
feet  stay  still,  her  eyes  and  her  heart  follow.  She's 
still  a  woman  in  her  every  movement,  despite  her 
Tommy's  uniform.  And  Heming,  what  are  his 
feelings?  Is  he  using  her  as  a  means  to  drug 
memory?  Or  does  she  restore  to  him  a  chivalrous 
belief  that  he  was  in  danger  of  losing?  He  never 
commits  himself  and  rarely  speaks  to  her  except  to 
give  orders.  Queer  motives  urge  men  to  become 
heroes.  What  stories  we  should  have  if  every  man 
told  honestly  the  reasons  that  sent  him  here!  One 
has  committed  a  sin;  another  has  entrusted  his 
heart  to  the  wrong  woman.  They  ride  out  into  the 
hell  of  Judgment  Day  laughing,  and  perish  inso- 
lently, that  in  their  last  moments  they  may  appear 
again  magnificent  to  themselves. 


VI 

IT'S  midnight.    We're  still  in  the  copse.    We  be- 
lieve we  are  to  take  part  in  a  new  attack  to- 
morrow, but  have  received  no  orders  as  yet. 

I  am  squatting  on  the  ground  beneath  a  low  tent 
made  of  Hun  great-coats  and  sacking  pinned  to- 
gether. On  one  side  of  me,  more  than  half  filling 
the  tiny  space,  the  Major  lies  asleep;  on  the  other 
is  a  shaded  candle  and  the  telephone  which  keeps 
us  in  touch  with  brigade.  Every  quarter  of  an  hour 
the  brigade-signallers  buzz  me  to  make  sure  that  the 
line  is  holding  up.  Every  now  and  then  I  draw  the 
flimsy  patch-work  of  the  roof  nearer  together  lest 
any  light  should  be  escaping.  Ever  since  darkness 
settled,  the  Hun  planes  have  been  bombing  our 
back  areas,  getting  after  our  horse-lines,  ammunition 
dumps  and  infantry  concentrations.  When  one  of 
them  has  scored  a  direct  hit  on  a  dump,  all  the 
country  within  the  radius  of  half  a  mile  is  flooded 
with  a  pulsating  wave  of  red.  While  it  lasts,  no 
movement  remains  hidden  from  the  watchers  in  the 
sky;  a  man  stands  out  as  distinctly  as  a  tower.  In 
the  welter  of  blackness  the  glow  of  a  cigarette,  a 
match  struck  however  furtively,  the  leakage  of  light 
from  a  bivouac,  show  up  as  significantly  as  beacon- 
fires.  The  human-eagles  got  after  us  in  fine  style 
two  hours  ago,  coming  so  close  that  we  had  to  ride 

240 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         241 

our  horses  bare-back  into  the  night,  pursued  from 
the  air  not  only  by  bombs  but  also  by  machine-guns. 

Now  all  our  men  who  are  not  on  duty  are  trying 
to  snatch  what  rest  they  can  before  another  dis- 
turbance starts.  There  always  is  another,  and  a 
next  and  a  next.  The  Hun  airmen,  having  exhausted 
their  supply  of  bombs,  have  flown  back  to  re- 
plenish. They're  due  to  return  almost  any  minute 
and  will  do  their  best  again  to  pick  up  our  scent.  If 
we  don't  attack  to-morrow,  we  can't  stay  here,  now 
that  we  have  been  spotted. 

I'm  appallingly  sleepy  and  am  scribbling  chiefly 
in  an  effort  to  keep  my  eyes  from  closing.  They 
feel  as  if  they  had  been  filled  with  dust;  I  have  to 
wedge  my  lids  up  with  my  fingers  to  prevent  them 
from  falling.  I  can  well  understand  how  sentries 
drop  off  at  their  posts,  despite  the  knowledge  that 
they  are  committing  a  shooting  offence.  It's  strange 
to  reflect  that  in  civil  life  no  money  could  have 
persuaded  us  to  put  up  with  one  tithe  of  our  dis- 
comforts, let  alone  with  our  dangers  super-added. 
If  we  get  back  to  a  world  of  sheeted  beds,  all 
former  necessities  will  seem  forever  luxuries. 

Earlier  in  the  evening  I  told  the  Major  about 
Heming.  He  agreed  with  me  that  we  must  do  our 
best  to  prevent  him  from  learning  about  Mrs. 
Dragott.  The  Major  was  quite  frank  in  the  ex- 
pression of  his  opinion.  "  There  are  some  kinds  of 
messes  you  can  live  down,"  he  said;  "  the  results  of 
them  may  make  you  even  stronger  to  face  life.  My 
kind  of  mess  is  a  case  in  point.  I  go  home  on  leave, 


242         THE    TEST    OF   SCARLET 

expecting  to  marry  my  girl,  and  find  that  not  only 
has  she  jilted  me,  but  that  she  has  the  cheek  to 
compel  me  to  save  her  face  by  attending  her  wed- 
ding to  another  chap.  Of  course  I  had  a  lucky  es- 
cape; if  that  was  the  sort  she  was,  life  with  her 
would  have  been  unbearable.  At  the  same  time  the 
experience  has  crippled  my  belief  in  myself  and,  up 
to  a  point,  my  faith  in  women  generally.  I'm  not 
particular  whether  I  come  out  of  the  war —  that's 
the  way  I  feel  at  present.  But  on  one  thing  I  am 
determined:  I'll  prove  to  her  before  I  die  that  she 
backed  the  wrong  horse  and  was  a  rotten  bad 
guesser.  I'll  take  every  chance  and  try  to  win 
every  decoration.  When  the  war  ends,  if  I'm  still 
above  ground,  I'll  succeed  all  I  can  and  collar  a 
girl  a  thousand  times  more  kind  than  she  ever 
dreamt  of  being.  So  I  suppose  instead  of  smash- 
ing me,  she's  really  helped  to  make  me.  Now  with 
Heming  it's  quite  different.  He  may  not  know  it, 
but  he's  still  in  love  with  his  woman.  By  her  method 
of  refusing  him,  she  made  herself  romantic  to  him. 
She  pushed  him  from  her  when  she  confessed  she 
was  a  spy;  but  at  the  same  time  she  roused  his  pity 
and  drew  him  to  her.  By  no  stretch  of  imagination 
can  he  ever  win  her,  neither  can  he  ever  quite  lose 
her.  He'll  be  lucky  if  he  isn't  recalled  to  bear  wit- 
ness against  her;  if  he  is,  he  will  smudge  his  own 
honour.  And  as  for  her,  if  she  isn't  shot,  she'll  cer- 
tainly get  penal  servitude.  The  most  fortunate 
thing  that  could  happen  to  him  is  that  he  should 
fall  in  action.  If  we  can  help  it,  he  must  never  hear 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         243 

of  this  tragedy.  We've  a  month  of  hard  fighting 
ahead  of  us.  Many  of  us  will  go  west  before  the 
days  grow  much  shorter.  I  hope  for  his  sake  he's 
one  of  them.  I  shan't  try  to  prevent  his  going." 

"  And  what  about  Suzette?"  I  asked. 

He  returned  my  question,  "  Well,  and  what  about 
her?" 

"  We've  no  right  to  have  her  with  us,"  I  said. 
"  She  might  get  killed." 

"And  if  she  does,"  the  Major  took  me  up,  "that 
wouldn't  be  the  worst  calamity  that  could  befall  her. 
Death's  not  the  final  tragedy  we  used  to  think  it; 
very  often  it's  the  new  start.  Her  life  was  probably 
gray  enough  before  we  found  her  —  a  peasant  girl, 
who  had  been  used  by  men  and  would  probably  be 
used  by  men  to  the  end  of  the  chapter.  What  kind 
of  a  career  has  she  ahead  of  her  if  we  throw  her 
down  now?  There's  nothing  but  devastated  country 
behind  us.  If  I  told  her  tomorrow  that  she'd  got  to 
buzz  off,  where  would  she  go  or  who  would  care 
what  happened?  No,  she's  going  to  stay  with  us; 
and  if  she  comes  through  it  all,  we'll  make  ourselves 
responsible  for  her  and  take  her  back  with  us  to 
Canada.  I  tell  you  what  it  is,  the  more  I  see  of  that 
girl,  the  more  grateful  I  am  that  she's  with  us. 

She's  restored  my  ideal  of  women. You  think 

I'm  talking  like  an  ass,  no  doubt;  but  from  Heming 
down,  there's  not  an  unmarried  man  in  the  battery 
who's  not  more  or  less  in  love  with  her.  No,  my  boy, 
until  we've  been  found  out  and  have  received  direct 
orders  to  get  rid  of  her,  Suzette  stops." 


244        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

"  And  Bully  Beef?"  I  asked. 

"  And  Bully  Beef,"  he  answered.  "  He  can 
always  be  left  behind  with  the  transport  when  we're 
in  action.  Old  Dan  Turpin  will  look  after  him.  He 
considers  him  his  own  kid  already." 

I've  been  sitting  here  thinking  over  this  con- 
versation, and  especially  over  one  sentence, 
"  Death's  not  the  final  tragedy;  very  often  it's  the 
new  start."  Those  words  really  explain  our  indif- 
ference in  the  face  of  shell-fire  and  torture.  We  no 
longer  fear  the  separation  of  the  spirit  from  the 
body.  We  don't  regard  the  separation  as  ex- 
tinction; we  view  it  with  quiet  curiosity  and  suspect 
that  it  may  only  mean  beginning  afresh.  Perhaps 
we're  exceptional  in  our  battery,  inasmuch  as  there 
are  so  many  who  would  welcome  the  opportunity  to 
begin  afresh.  Tubby  certainly  must  be  glad  of  it; 
going  on  the  way  he  was,  the  noble  part  of  him 
would  never  have  had  a  chance.  This  war  has  made 
so  many  of  us  aware  of  a  nobility  which  we  never 
knew  we  possessed.  We're  a  little  afraid  that  we 
shall  lose  it,  if  we  live  through  to  the  corpulent  days 
of  peace.  We  would  rather  go  west  at  the  moment 
when  we  are  acting  up  to  our  most  decent  standards. 
It's  odd,  but  when  threatened  by  death,  it's  the  fear 
of  life  that  assails  us.  The  dread  of  old  age  grips 
us  by  the  throat;  the  terror  of  old  temptations, 
which  of  late  we  have  been  too  athletic  in  soul  to 
gratify,  confronts  us.  The  gray,  unheroic  mon- 
otony of  unmerited  failures  and  unworthy  suc- 
cesses daunts  us.  We  dread  lest  when  war  ends, 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         245 

the  old  grasping  selfishnesses  may  re-assert  them- 
selves. To-day  we  have  the  opportunity  to  go  out 
like  vikings,  perishing  in  a  storm.  To  live  a  few 
years  longer  only  to  shuffle  off,  will  not  be  re- 
warding. 

At  this  point  I  have  to  leave  off.  A  runner  has 
just  come  in  bringing  us  word  that  we  are  to  be  pre- 
pared to  push  forward  at  dawn. 


VII 

THE  Major's  opportunity  to  prove  his  girl  "a 
rotten  bad  guesser"  came  sooner  than  we  ex- 
pected. I  shouldn't  be  at  all  surprised  to  see  Charlie 
Wraith  with  a  V.  C.  ribbon  on  his  breast  before  many 
days  are  out.  He  hardly  fills  the  bill  for  the  popu- 
lar conception  of  a  hero,  with  his  little  bandy-legs 
and  his  deathly  pallor ;  but  it's  what  a  chap  is  that 
counts.  This  is  how  his  opportunity  occurred. 

It  was  6  A.  M.  when  we  moved  off.  We  had  been 
harnessed  up  and  ready,  awaiting  our  final  orders 
for  two  hours.  When  they  did  arrive,  they  came 
with  a  rush,  as  per  usual;  we  were  scarcely  given 
sufficient  time  to  complete  our  march  before  we  were 
required  to  be  in  action.  Measuring  off  the  distance 
on  the  maps  which  accompanied  the  orders,  we  dis- 
covered that  to  be  in  time  for  the  attack  it  would  be 
necessary  for  us  to  travel  all  the  way  at  the  hard 
trot.  The  Major  went  on  ahead  of  us  to  reconnoitre 
the  position,  leaving  Heming  to  lead  the  battery. 
Our  direction  lay  across  the  plateau  from  which  we 
had  been  turned  back  by  enemy  fire  on  the  day  we 
lost  Tubby.  The  enemy  had  been  pushed  far  back 
now;  the  roads  were  so  thronged  by  our  own  trans- 
port that  we  had  to  forsake  beaten  tracks  and  take 
our  chances  across  country.  There  was  always  the 

246 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET         247 

danger  that  we  might  mistake  landmarks  which  we 
believed  we  had  recognised  from  our  maps,  and  so 
lose  time;  there  was  also  the  risk  that  in  the  open 
we  might  be  held  up  by  uncut  wire-entanglements. 

It  was  a  gorgeous  morning,  blue  and  golden,  with 
a  touch  of  ice  in  the  air.  Over  turf  and  woodlands, 
as  far  as  eye  could  search,  the  dew  had  flung  a  silver 
mesh. 

The  sky  was  almost  without  a  cloud;  tumbling 
through  its  depths,  like  eels  in  a  tank,  aeroplanes 
looped  and  wriggled.  The  landscape  was  one  con- 
tinuous chain  of  island-woods,  each  one  of  which 
had  been  a  machine-gun  fortress  of  the  enemy.  We 
were  told  that  in  some  of  them  the  enemy  were  still 
fighting,  though  they  knew  that  they  were  hopelessly 
marooned  and  that  our  advance  had  swept  on  many 
miles  ahead.  Under  the  shadow  of  trees  villages 
were  dotted  about,  most  of  them  possessing  a  tall 
spired  church.  From  what  we  could  see  in  the 
hurry  of  our  passage,  every  human  habitation  had 
been  laid  level  with  the  ground.  It  was  impossible 
to  believe  that  this  destruction  was  the  result  of 
British  shells,  since  our  artillery  had  been  too  far 
behind  to  do  the  damage.  It  must  have  been  the 
deliberate  demolition  of  the  Hun  when  he  knew  that 
he  had  to  retire.  In  his  retreat  he  had  stolen  every- 
thing that  he  had  not  destroyed.  No  food,  furni- 
ture or  live-stock  were  left;  all  the  inhabitants  had 
been  carried  off  captive. 

The  position  we  were  looking  for  was  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  a  crossroads,  unpropitiously  marked 


248         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

"Death  Corner"  on  the  map.  It  was  at  the  entrance 
to  a  village  which  our  infantry  were  rumoured  to 
have  captured  at  dawn;  whether  they  had  captured 
it  or,  having  captured  it,  had  been  able  to  hold  it, 
we  did  not  know  for  certain. 

Some  parts  of  our  journey  we  had  to  go  at  the 
walk  on  account  of  the  roughness  of  the  ground,  but 
most  of  the  way  we  went  at  the  trot.  As  the  sun 
grew  stronger,  our  horses  broke  into  a  foam  of  sweat. 
Men  and  animals  were  wildly  excited.  This  was 
soldiering  as  depicted  by  battle-artists  and  recruit- 
ing posters  —  a  very  different  job  from  the  tedious, 
wakeful  misery  of  night-marches.  All  the  officers 
and  mounted  N.  C.  O's  had  picked  up  swords  from 
the  fallen  cavalry.  A  good  many  of  the  men  had 
armed  themselves  with  revolvers  which  they  had 
salvaged  from  the  dead.  We  didn't  know  how  close 
we  were  going  to  get  to  the  enemy,  but  we  had  hopes. 

What  struck  us  most  forcibly,  especially  as  we 
drew  nearer  to  the  thunder  of  the  guns,  was  the  light- 
ness with  which  our  line  was  held.  One  saw  no  sup- 
porting troops;  it  seemed  as  though  we  had  thrown 
every  last  man  into  the  actual  fighting.  We  began 
to  apprehend  why  we  had  to  keep  on  attacking:  the 
Hun  was  falling  back  on  his  reserves;  if  we  let  him 
halt  to  regain  his  breath  he  would  take  the  offensive. 
Were  that  to  happen,  our  retreat  might  prove  just 
as  precipitate  as  our  advance. 

We  were  riding  now  through  the  batteries  which 
had  leap-frogged  us  yesterday.  They  were  firing 
away  like  mad.  The  air  was  shaken  with  rapid  con- 


THE   TEST    OF   SCARLET         249 

cussions.  It  was  impossible  to  make  oneself  heard; 
all  our  commands  had  to  be  given  by  signals.  On 
ahead  things  looked  pretty  hot;  the  ground  kept 
spouting  up  in  fountains  of  dust  and  flame.  In- 
creasingly the  enemy  retaliation  was  finding  us  out. 
We  clapped  spurs  to  our  horses  and  broke  into  a 
gallop. 

Out  of  the  cloud  of  drifting  smoke  our  little 
Major  emerged,  signalling  to  us  to  follow  him.  He 
led  us  on  clear  beyond  the  other  batteries,  till  we 
were  almost  treading  on  the  heels  of  our  infantry. 
We  had  scarcely  downed  trail,  when  he  gave  us  our 
aiming-point  and  directions,  and  had  us  tearing  off 
four  rounds  a  minute.  I  looked  at  my  wrist-watch. 
Pretty  work!  We  had  arrived  just  in  time  and  had 
got  into  action  on  the  second.  As  our  teams  trotted 
back  to  our  temporary  wagon-lines,  a  hail  of  shells 
came  over,  wounding  several  of  the  men  and  horses. 

There  was  precious  little  information  as  to  what 
had  happened  or  was  happening.  Our  infantry  had 
captured  the  town  immediately  in  front  of  us  and 
were  preparing  to  go  forward  behind  our  barrage  to 
capture  the  next  town  which  lay  ahead.  Everybody 
said  that  we  had  insufficient  tanks  for  the  task  and 
that  the  enemy  was  making  a  determined  stand. 
How  much  of  this  was  conjecture  and  how  much 
fact,  nobody  could  assert  positively.  There  was  a 
feeling  of  tension  and  anxiety.  No  one  was  quite 
certain  what  he  was  expected  to  accomplish.  Our 
own  fear  was  that  in  firing  without  more  exact  in- 
formation we  might  be  killing  our  own  men.  The 


250        THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

Major  himself  determined  to  go  forward  to  ascer- 
tain the  true  condition  of  affairs.  While  he  was 
gone,  Heming  returned  from  the  wagon-lines,  bring- 
ing with  him  two  Hun  field-guns  he  had  found,  so 
making  us  into  an  eight-gun  battery. 

We  had  been  firing  for  about  half  an  hour  when 
a  mounted  signaller,  sent  back  by  the  Major,  rode 
up.  He  reported  that  the  attack  had  been  only  par- 
tially successful,  owing  to  the  tremendous  concentra- 
tion of  enemy  machine-guns,  which  lay  hidden  in 
the  wheat-fields  between  the  two  towns.  Another 
attack  was  to  take  place  within  the  hour;  it  was 
necessary  that  the  battery  should  move  up  in  order 
that  our  support  might  be  more  immediate  and 
effective.  The  signaller  added  that  the  Major  was 
at  Death  Corner,  in  full  sight  of  the  enemy  and  that 
his  groom  had  been  killed  within  five  minutes  of  his 
arrival  there. 

We  hooked  in  and  started  off  by  a  mud-track. 
The  mud-track  was  strewn  on  either  side  by  men 
and  horses,  newly  dead.  Some  of  them  we  recog- 
nised as  people  who  had  passed  us  while  we  had  been 
in  action.  The  enemy  shells  were  sweeping  the  track 
for  all  the  world  as  though  a  gigantic  hose  were 
playing  down  its  length.  Now  they  would  spray 
this  part  of  it,  then  lift  a  hundred  yards  and  spray 
that.  Ahead  of  us  stretched  a  billowy  level  of 
wheat-fields;  to  the  right  lay  Rouvroy,  the  town 
which  we  had  captured;  at  right  angles  to  the  track 
and  passing  in  front  of  Rouvroy  ran  a  road,  which 
was  clearly  indicated  above  the  wheat  by  a  straight 


THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET         251 

line  of  splintered  trees.  The  point  where  the  track 
met  the  road  was  Death  Corner.  It  looked  as  un- 
healthy a  spot  as  one  could  well  imagine;  everything 
was  rocking  in  a  whirlwind  of  explosions.  Three 
hundred  yards  short  of  the  corner  we  swung  off  to 
the  left  and  came  into  action.  Over  the  short  dis- 
tance which  separated  the  battery  from  the  Major 
we  ran  in  a  telephone  wire.  From  where  he  was 
and  indeed  from  any  point  on  the  high  road,  the 
entire  battle-field  lay  exposed  and,  on  its  furthest 
edge,  the  entrenched  town  of  Fouquescourt  which 
it  was  essential  we  should  possess. 

The  Major  had  arranged  with  the  infantry  that, 
at  a  given  signal,  we  would  at  once  open  at  an  in- 
tense rate  of  fire  and  that  behind  our  shells  the  ad- 
vance against  the  town  should  commence.  We  had 
been  firing  for,  perhaps,  five  minutes,  when  we  re- 
ceived orders  from  our  brigade  headquarters,  which 
were  well  in  rear  of  us,  to  stop.  The  Major,  watch- 
ing from  his  point  of  vantage,  saw  that  all  of  a  sud- 
den our  advancing  riflemen  were  left  unprotected. 
He  called  up  to  know  what  was  the  matter  and  at 
once  ordered  us  to  go  on.  For  the  next  two  hours 
we  purposely  let  our  line  to  brigade  go  down  so  that 
we  might  be  out  of  touch  and  left  unhampered  to 
do  our  work. 

And  what  a  two  hours  those  next  two  hours  were! 
The  Hun  was  putting  up  the  fight  of  his  life.  All 
through  the  three  thousand  yards  of  wheat-fields 
which  separated  Rouvroy  from  Fouquescourt  wire- 
entanglements  and  machine-gun  nests  had  been  con- 


252         THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

structed.  You  could  not  see  them  for  the  grain,  and 
did  not  know  they  were  there  until  you  were  upon 
them.  In  the  first  advance  which  had  failed,  our 
men  had  walked  straight  into  the  traps  and  most  of 
their  officers  had  been  shot  down.  In  the  second, 
which  we  had  come  up  close  to  support,  our  men 
had  wriggled  their  way  forward  and  reached  Fou- 
quescourt,  only  to  find  that  they  were  cut  off  and 
had  left  the  enemy  in  the  wheat  behind  them.  In 
losing  time  we  were  giving  the  enemy  his  chance. 
He  was  bringing  his  guns  up  and  getting  them  into 
better  positions;  every  hour  his  artillery  fire  was 
becoming  better  directed  and  growing  more  intense. 
His  airmen  were  regaining  their  courage,  flying  in 
leaps  and  bounds  like  great  grasshoppers  just  above 
our  heads,  and  picking  off  our  men  with  machine- 
gun  fire.  We  had  to  keep  two  Lewis  guns  mounted 
on  the  flanks  of  our  battery  to  drive  them  off. 

Things  had  reached  a  pretty  desperate  pass, 
everyone  fighting  without  proper  information  and 
in  many  cases  without  leadership,  when  suddenly, 
silently  and  unheralded,  out  of  the  woods  behind  us 
appeared  a  cloud  of  cavalry.  They  drew  up,  as  if 
on  parade,  about  four  hundred  yards  to  our  left 
flank  and  in  line  with  ourselves.  They  were  in- 
stantly spotted  by  a  Hun  plane,  which  flew  to  and 
fro  over  them,  dropping  bombs.  He  was  so  busily 
engaged  that  he  did  not  notice  one  of  our  chaps 
swooping  down  on  him.  When  he  did  see  him, 
there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  escape.  Then  fol- 
lowed a  wild  chase;  our  chap  hovering  like  a  hawk 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         253 

on  top  and  driving  the  Hun  lower  and  lower 
towards  the  ground.  Of  a  sudden  the  Hun  burst 
into  flames  and  shot  downwards  like  a  torch.  But 
before  he  was  caught  he  must  have  signalled  back 
the  cavalry  target  to  his  gunners,  for  right  into  the 
midst  of  the  waiting  horsemen  the  shells  began  to 
fall.  Their  courage  was  superb,  the  courage  of  the 
horses  equalling  that  of  the  men.  From  the  dis- 
tance at  which  we  watched,  it  was  exactly  like 
seeing  rocks  flung  into  a  pond  —  only  the  rocks 
were  high  explosives  and  the  pond  was  made  up  of 
living  flesh.  We  saw  the  splash  of  bodies  tossed 
high  into  the  air,  the  ripple  of  horsemen  reining 
back,  and  then  the  patient  orderly  reforming  of 
their  ranks. 

A  trumpet  sounded.  At  a  walk,  and  then  at  a 
gentle  trot,  a  hundred  men  rode  up  on  to  the  high- 
road and  vanished  into  the  sea  of  yellow  on  the 
other  side.  Then  a  hundred  more.  Then  a  hundred 
more,  till  none  but  those  who  could  not  rise  were 
left.  As  each  little  company  was  displayed  to  the 
enemy,  the  high-road  was  swept  with  bullets  as  with 
pelting  hail.  Riders  crumpled  in  their  saddles; 
horses  reared  themselves  up,  pawing  at  the  air  and 
toppled  over  backwards.  The  survivors  paid  no 
heed  to  the  agony  which  would  certainly  be  theirs 
within  the  next  few  seconds;  unhurriedly,  keeping 
cool  and  using  their  heads,  they  set  spurs  to  their 
horses  and  danced  away  to  trample  the  machine- 
guns  and  clear  a  way  for  the  infantry,  or  to  die  in 
the  attempt.  How  many  of  them  came  back  we  did 


254        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

not  count,  but  most  of  them  found  a  grave  in  the 
sea  of  yellow. 

The  man  at  the  telephone  was  beckoning  to  me. 
"  The  Major  wants  you  to  speak  with  him,"  he  said. 

"  Hulloa !  hulloa !     That  you,  Major  ? " 

"  Is  that  you,  Chris?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Is  there  anyone  you  can  leave  with  the  guns?" 

"  There's  Edwine,  Sir." 

"  Then  come  up  to  where  I  am  at  once." 

I  handed  over  the  battery  and  went  forward.  At 
Death  Corner  I  was  met  by  a  sight  which  I  shall 
not  easily  forget.  In  the  middle  of  the  crossroads 
the  dead  lay  in  mounds.  Many  of  them  were  men 
whom  I  recognised.  The  place  was  strewn  with 
horses.  The  first  to  catch  my  eyes  was  old  Fury,  the 
Major's  rusty  charger;  his  hind-legs  had  been  shot 
away  from  under  him  and  he  sat  with  his  front-legs 
thrust  out  like  poles,  balancing  himself  and  swaying 
his  head.  Pressed  flat  behind  a  tree  I  saw  the 
Major,  peering  out  across  the  waving  corn,  where 
the  cavalry  were  charging  death  at  the  gallop. 
Crouching  low  and  dodging  the  shells,  I  gained  his 
place  of  hiding. 

"  Some  picnic,  isn't  it?"  were  his  first  words.  He 
was  as  happy  and  excited  as  if  he  were  the  spec- 
tator of  a  gigantic  football  match.  How  he  had  been 
able  to  survive  at  Death  Corner  for  so  long  was  a 
marvel.  I  looked  at  the  picnic.  All  I  could  see  was 
men  creeping  back  on  their  hands  and  knees,  rider- 
less horses  writhing  and  drowning  in  the  sea  of 


THE   TEST   OF    SCARLET         255 

yellow,  stranded  tanks,  smouldering  heaps  mark- 
ing the  spots  where  aeroplanes  had  crashed  incan- 
descent as  comets  and,  across  the  plain  of  wheat,  a 
wall  of  fire  where  our  shells  were  falling  and  columns 
of  suffocating  smoke  were  curling  above  the  funeral 
pyres  of  towns. 

"  Some  picnic,  all  right,"  I  said.  The  Major 
laughed  at  me  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eyes.  "  It's 
the  real  thing  —  open  warfare,  what  we  always 
wanted.  See  here,  Chris,  I've  collected  some  of  these 
infantry  chaps;  their  officers  have  been  nearly  all 
wiped  out.  I'm  going  to  lead  them  forward  to  clean 
up  some  of  those  enemy  machine-gun  nests. 
They've  got  to  be  cleaned  up,  because  they're  cut- 
ting us  off  from  our  troops  who  are  in  Fouquescourt. 
God  knows  what's  happening  up  there.  Someone's 
got  to  fight  his  way  through  and  find  out.  I  want 
you  to  stop  here  and  watch  for  any  messages  I  send 
back." 

His  eye  caught  Fury.  "  I  can't  leave  him  like 
that." 

At  the  risk  of  his  life  he  dodged  across  the  open 
space  to  where  his  old  companion  sat  swaying  his 
head  forlornly.  I  saw  him  pat  the  velvet  neck  and 
then  fumble  for  his  revolver.  He  looked  at  the  re- 
volver and  then  at  the  horse.  He  came  back  to  me 
slowly,  "  I  can't.  You  do  it  when  I'm  gone." 

Along  the  edge  of  the  wheat  the  infantry  were 
lying  waiting  for  him;  they  were  the  stragglers  and 
survivors  of  the  first  two  attacks.  As  he  reached 
them  he  fell  on  his  hands  and  knees  and  crawled 


256        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

away,  while  they  followed  him  at  intervals  through 
the  golden  stalks. 

Had  the  Huns  seen  him  at  that  moment,  they 
would  not  have  considered  him  an  object  of  terror, 
under-sized  and  wizened  as  he  was.  But  it  was 
Charlie  Wraith,  despite  his  physical  deficiencies,  who 
put  heart  into  defeated  men  that  day  and  by  his 
magnificent  contempt  for  death  forced  a  way  into 
Fouquescourt  to  the  support  of  troops  which  had  be- 
come isolated.  How  many  enemy  strongholds  he 
bombed  out  he  alone  knows,  and  he  refuses  to  tell. 
The  men  whom  he  led  cannot  tell,  for  most  of  them 
are  dead.  He  had  always  yearned  to  kill  Germans 
face  to  face,  so  he  must  have  had  a  time  entirely 
satisfactory  and  satisfying.  It  wasn't  his  job  as  an 
artilleryman;  but,  as  he  said  in  excusing  himself 
afterwards,  it  was  a  dirty  job  and  with  most  of  the 
infantry  officers  gone  west,  there  was  no  one  else  to 
c(o  it. 

He  got  severely  strafed  on  his  return  for  having 
left  his  battery,  which  he  ought  to  have  been  com- 
manding. Then  news  began  to  come  in  of  what  he 
had  actually  accomplished  and  how  it  was  he  who 
had  flashed  back  the  reports  which  had  enabled  the 
front  to  be  consolidated.  He's  been  recommended 
for  the  V.  C.  and  it  looks  as  though  he  would  get  it. 
So  he's  attained  the  desire  nearest  to  his  heart;  he's 
healed  his  wounded  pride  and  will  be  able  to  prove 
to  the  girl  who  flung  him  down  that  her  knowledge 
of  human  arithmetic  was  faulty. 


VIII 

WE  are  still  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Death 
Corner.  It  looks  as  though  the  attack  has 
been  pressed  as  far  as  it  can  go  at  this  point.  The 
whole  of  Fouquescourt  is  now  in  our  hands,  but  be- 
yond that  lies  Fransart  and  the  railroad,  which  the 
enemy  is  holding  heavily.  To  the  south  of  us  the 
French  are  trying  to  turn  the  enemy's  flank  of 
Noyon,  but  apparently  with  little  success,  for  the  re- 
sistance in  front  of  us  grows  stiffer  rather  than  less. 
The  Hun  is  a  long  way  from  being  beaten  yet.  What- 
ever may  be  the  morale  of  his  rank  and  file,  his 
storm-troops  never  fought  better.  For  two  days 
after  we  had  surrounded  Fouquescourt  there  were 
machine-gunners  who  still  refused  to  surrender  and 
kept  up  a  running  scrap  from  house  to  house,  caus- 
ing us  many  casualties  and  much  annoyance. 

Every  twenty-four  hours  we  had  to  shift  our  guns 
owing  to  the  Hun  aerial  activity.  By  day  the  enemy 
airmen  spot  us;  under  cover  of  night  they  return  to 
bomb  us.  They  have  not  scored  any  direct  hits  on 
our  guns  yet,  thanks  to  our  precautions  in  changing 
our  positions  every  nightfall,  but  they  have  made  us 
pay  heavily  in  the  loss  of  men.  With  so  much  shift- 
ing and  changing  it  is  not  possible  to  build  any  over- 
head protection;  the  most  we  can  do  is  to  scoop 
holes  in  the  ground  of  sufficient  depth  to  hide  us 

257 


258        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

from  the  splinters.  Next  night  we  have  to  scoop 
fresh  holes  and  spread  our  blankets  somewhere  else. 

Owing  to  the  precariousness  of  the  way  in  which 
our  front  is  held  we  have  to  be  on  duty  all  the  time. 
At  night  we  never  dare  to  undress,  nor  even  to  re- 
move our  boots.  This  is  not  like  the  old  days,  when 
we  had  an  elaborate  system  of  trenches  and  a  wide 
No  Man's  Land  between  ourselves  and  the  enemy; 
to-day  we  have  outposts  dotted  here  and  there,  and  a 
thin  line  of  riflemen  strung  out  through  ditches  and 
woods.  In  a  moving  battle  one  is  never  quite  certain 
where  our  country  ends  and  the  Hun's  commences. 
If  we  were  for  a  minute  to  relax  our  vigilance,  we 
might  be  overwhelmed.  But  the  vigilance  when  com- 
bined with  the  bombing  and  the  shelling  is  very 
wearing. 

The  weather  has  become  unusually  hot.  The 
men  go  about  stripped  to  the  waist  and  dripping  with 
sweat.  We  left  all  our  surplus  baggage  behind  be- 
fore the  offensive  started,  so  there  are  few  of  us  who 
have  more  than  one  change  of  underwear.  The  re- 
sult is  that  all  the  time  we  feel  prickly  and  dirty. 
We  would  give  a  month's  pay  for  a  plunge  in  a  river 
and  a  chance  to  clean  ourselves.  Try  as  we  may  to 
prevent  it,  already  a  number  of  the  men  are  develop- 
ing skin-diseases  and  nearly  all  of  them  are  ver- 
minous. With  the  constant  wearing  of  our  boots, 
the  feet  of  most  of  us  are  getting  blistered  and  sore. 
One  of  our  gun-detachments  made  a  lucky  find, 
which  has  caused  them  to  be  the  envy  of  the  bat- 
tery. In  what  had  been  a  Hun  officers'  mess  they 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         259 

found  a  quantity  of  woman's  lingerie,  all  of  the  very 
daintiest  —  pink  silk  finery,  with  baby  ribbons  and 
much  lace.  They  at  once  discarded  their  army  shirts 
and  now  lend  a  touch  of  humor  to  our  landscape  as 
they  fire  their  gun  in  their  filmy  attire. 

The  heat  has  caused  the  carcases  of  the  dead 
horses  to  decompose  more  quickly  than  usual;  they 
lie  indecently  throughout  the  wheat-fields  and  roads 
like  huge  inflated  bag-pipes  with  their  legs  sticking 
woodenly  in  the  air.  For  miles  the  atmosphere  is 
tainted  with  the  nauseating  stench  of  decaying  flesh. 
No  one  has  the  time  or  the  energy  for  burying  them; 
even  our  human  dead  have  in  very  many  cases 
not  yet  been  accorded  the  common  kindness  of  a 
grave.  We  are  all  too  tired  to  form  funeral  parties 
and  the  risk  of  exposing  one's  self  is  too  great.  All 
our  movements  have  to  take  place  under  the  cover 
of  darkness;  it  is  then  that  our  ammunition  is  sent 
up.  The  Hun  is  perfectly  aware  of  this;  he  keeps 
every  road  and  suspected  battery-position,  with  all 
its  approaches,  under  constant  bombardment  from 
sundown  to  well  after  midnight. 

Our  rations,  as  may  be  imagined,  are  of  the  very 
plainest,  consisting  for  the  most  part  of  bully  beef, 
tea,  and  hard  tack.  To  light  fires  to  cook  anything 
is  dangerous;  the  smoke  would  give  us  away  in  a 
second.  We  have  outrun  our  lines  of  communica- 
tion. Our  railhead  is  many  miles  behind.  Every- 
thing has  to  be  brought  up  to  the  battle  area  by 
motor-transport,  across  roads  which  the  enemy  did 
his  best  to  destroy  in  his  flight.  We  are  entirely 


260        THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

out  of  tobacco  and  cigarettes.  Our  only  remaining 
smokes  are  Hun  cigars,  which  we  have  found  in 
abandoned  billets  or  in  the  pockets  of  the  dead. 

It  would  have  been  normal  to  have  supposed 
that  in  an  advance  of  these  dimensions  we  should 
have  captured  enough  booty  to  have  kept  ourselves 
supplied.  Where  we  are  now  was  the  Hun's  back- 
country  a  few  days  ago,  to  which  his  troops  marched 
out  to  rest.  His  canteens  were  here,  his  workshops 
and  hospitals.  There  were  plenty  of  French  civil- 
ians still  in  possession  of  these  houses;  the  gardens 
and  fields  were  under  cultivation.  Our  advance  was 
so  unexpected  and  rapid  that  it  gave  him  hardly 
any  warning  of  our  advent;  and  yet  he  contrived  to 
strip  everything  and  to  carry  it  off  in  his  wagons. 
Even  the  gardens  are  bare;  nothing  but  the  crops  in 
the  fields  are  left.  The  only  fresh  meat  which  any 
of  us  have  had  has  been  supplied  us  by  our  veteri- 
nary sergeant,  who  holds  that  horse-flesh  is  a  per- 
fectly healthy  diet  if  you  take  only  the  best  cuts. 
There  are  plenty  of  wounded  horses  wandering 
about,  of  no  further  service  to  the  army. 

War  has  certainly  taught  us  one  thing:  that  we 
all  have  a  far  greater  power  of  endurance  than  we 
guessed.  Here  we  are,  having  put  up  with  every 
kind  of  hardship,  having  experienced  every  kind  of 
shock,  having  lived  with  horror  as  a  daily  companion, 
having  gone  without  sleep,  without  proper  food  or 
anything  approaching  cleanliness,  and  yet  we  are 
happy  and  cheerfully  prepared  for  as  much  more 
punishment  as  may  be  allotted. 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         261 

The  extraordinary  cheerfulness  of  our  men,  the 
kind  of  school-boy  attitude  they  take  up  towards 
war,  as  though  it  were  no  more  than  a  tremendous 
lark,  is  illustrated  by  the  glee  they  displayed  in 
firing  the  two  whizz-bangs  which  Heming  brought 
up  to  us  when  we  were  attacking  Fouquescourt.  I 
suppose  they  derived  a  grim  satisfaction  from  pelt- 
ing the  enemy  with  his  own  shells.  To  have  two 
more  guns  to  serve  meant  that  everybody  had  to  do 
considerably  more  work.  Besides  the  actual  work 
of  serving  them,  there  was  the  added  labour  of  hunt- 
ing up  and  collecting  the  Hun  ammunition  which 
was  scattered  throughout  the  country-side.  They 
did  it  all  without  a  grumble,  preferring  to  regard 
the  undertaking  as  a  joke  at  the  enemy's  expense. 

Yesterday  we  received  an  order  that  all  captured 
ordnance  had  to  be  drawn  back  to  a  special  park, 
some  ten  miles  to  the  rear.  When  our  men  heard 
that,  they  went  out  and  gathered  together  six  hun- 
dred rounds  per  gun  and  spent  the  night  in  pooping 
them  off  into  the  enemy  back-country  just  as  fast  as 
they  could  load  and  fire.  Funny  chaps!  They 
won't  be  so  keen  on  working  overtime  when  once 
they  get  back  to  their  labour  unions. 

By  the  way,  Suzette  has  just  communicated  to  us 
an  interesting  fact  about  herself.  She  asked  to  be 
paraded  before  the  Major,  as  though  she  were  ac- 
tually a  Tommy  instead  of  a  civilian  girl.  In  the 
queer  broken  English  which  she  has  picked  up  from 
our  men,  she  told  us  that  this  was  her  country  be- 
fore the  war  came  and  she  had  to  flee  from  it.  Her 


262         THE    TEST   OF   SCARLET 

home  was  in  Fransart,  which  is  the  next  town  which 
we  shall  have  to  attack.  She  wanted  to  let  us  know 
this  because  she  thought  her  knowledge  of  the  dis- 
trict might  be  of  value.  And  then  came  what  was 
probably  her  real  motive  for  asking  to  be  paraded; 
a  request  that  she  might  be  allowed  to  accompany 
the  next  officer  and  party  of  signallers  going  up 
front. 

"  But  why?  What  for?"  the  Major  questioned. 

"  Eet  was  my  'ome,"  she  said.  "  I  wish  zo  much 

to  zee  eet  before  zee  guns ."  She  puffed  out  her 

cheeks  and  then  emptied  them  with  an  explosive 
sound.  "  Before  zay  make  eet  all  flat." 

At  first  the  Major  refused  her  emphatically.  But 
the  Major  has  a  soft  place  for  Suzette;  I'm  not  at 
all  sure  that  he  is  not  just  as  much  in  love  with  her 
as  Heming.  For  some  time  I've  had  the  feeling  of 
a  growing  hidden  rivalry  between  the  two  men  — 
hidden  because,  being  friends,  they  are  ashamed  to 
acknowledge  rivalry.  And  then  again,  neither  of 
them  is  willing  to  own  her  attraction.  She  has  no 
right  to  be  here.  Were  it  discovered  that  the  reason 
for  her  presence  in  a  fighting  unit  was  the  Major's 
or  the  Captain's  affection,  the  affair  would  wear  a 
very  different  aspect  in  the  eyes  of  not  only  the 
higher  authorities,  but  also  of  the  men  in  the  battery 
itself.  Compelled  by  her  pleading,  the  Major  has 
promised  her  that  on  the  first  quiet  day  he  will 
allow  her  to  accompany  one  of  us  up  front.  In 
granting  her  request  I  think  he  is  ill-advised.  But 
it  is  clear  to  me  now  that,  were  she  to  make  any 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        263 

request  of  him,  however  mad,  he  would  not  be  able 
to  withstand  her. 

As  I  look  back,  I  am  amazed  that  I  have  been  so 
blind ;  I  can  remember  incidents  and  chance  phrases, 
insignificant  in  themselves,  which  pieced  together 
prove  beyond  a  doubt  that  the  Major  has  been  in 
love  with  her  from  the  very  first.  A  topsy-turvy 
world!  Nothing  really  matters  when  you  may  be 
blown  into  eternity  any  second.  All  I  hope  is  that 
no  one  else  has  noticed. 

Charlie  Wraith  on  that  day  at  Death  Corner, 
laughing  like  a  boy  playing  pirates!  It's  now  plain 
what  he  was  doing:  he  was  winning  the  admiration 
of  Suzette. 


IX 

DURING  the  last  two  days  I  have  seen  the  best 
bit  of  fighting  of  the  entire  war.  As  a  rule 
an  attack  is  a  big  sprawling  affair,  the  whole  of  which 
no  one  can  foresee,  and  the  whole  of  which  in  all  its 
details  no  single  person  can  command.  Everyone 
sets  out  with  general  instructions;  but  the  variations 
in  the  methods  by  which  those  instructions  are 
carried  out  depend  on  personal  initiative  and  chance. 
For  the  first  time  I  was  in  an  attack  every  phase  of 
which  one  could  follow  up  and  watch.  If  a  moving- 
picture  man  had  been  there,  he  could  have  made  his 
fortune.  From  first  to  last  the  entire  performance 
was  stage-set  and  capable  of  being  focussed. 

I  was  sent  up  forward  to  do  liaison  work  with  the 
battalion  which  was  holding  the  line  in  front  of 
Fouquescourt.  Everything  was  quiet  and  no  attack 
was  contemplated,  so  Suzette  had  her  way  and  was 
allowed  to  accompany  me.  I  did  not  much  relish 
having  the  responsibility  of  a  girl  with  me  in  what 
was  practically  the  Front-line,  though  nobody  by 
looking  at  her  could  have  guessed  that  she  was  a 
girl.  Her  appearance  was  that  of  a  slightly  built 
boy,  who  was  probably  two  years  below  the  military 
age;  but  there  was  nothing  to  arouse  suspicion  in 
that,  for  many  of  our  Tommies  have  obviously  in- 
creased their  age  in  order  to  get  themselves  into 

264 


THE   TEST    OF    SCARLET         265 

the  Army.  She  accompanied  me  ostensibly  as  a 
telephonist  in  my  signalling  party. 

Battalion  headquarters  were  situated  in  a  deep 
trench,  which  crossed  the  road  which  runs  between 
Fouquescourt  and  Fransart.  This  road  was  raked 
day  and  night  by  hostile  fire.  The  trench  itself  was 
anything  but  a  pleasant  spot.  The  moment  one 
poked  his  head  up  to  look  over  the  top  a  bullet  would 
whizz  by;  Hun  snipers  were  everywhere  and  quite 
close  up.  Suzette's  idea  in  accompanying  me  had 
been  to  get  a  glimpse  of  Fransart  before  it  was  flat- 
tened by  shells ;  but  apart  from  the  snipers  this  was 
impossible,  for  the  fields  sloped  up  into  a  ridge 
which  hid  all  but  the  tops  of  the  village  trees  from 
the  trench  where  we  were.  This  being  the  case  there 
was  not  much  sense  in  allowing  her  to  remain  in  a 
place  of  danger,  so  I  made  up  my  mind  to  send  her 
back  to  the  battery  with  the  runner  who  would 
carry  down  my  situation  report  at  nightfall. 

I  had  never  had  much  talk  with  Suzette;  that 
afternoon  as  I  sat  in  the  hot  sun-baked  trench  I  got 
a  glimpse  of  her  mind  for  the  first  time.  The  rest 
of  my  party  were  sprawled  out  on  their  backs,  trying 
to  make  up  for  broken  nights,  so  we  were  quite  by 
ourselves. 

"  Suzette,"  I  said,  "  why  do  you  follow  us?  It 
isn't  a  happy  sort  of  life.  Surely  somewhere  you 
must  have  friends." 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders  ever  so  slightly,  "My 
friends!  Zay  was  all  in  Fransart.  You  are  my 
friends  now." 


266        THE   TEST    OF    SCARLET 

I  tried  to  get  her  to  outline  to  me  what  had  hap- 
pened to  her  since  the  start  of  the  war,  but  she 
wasn't  to  be  drawn  out  on  that  point.  "  Ze  Ger- 
mans, zay  was  not  nice,"  she  said;  "  zay  killed  my 
mother  over  zare."  It  appeared  that  her  mother 
had  kept  pigeons  in  the  loft  of  their  cottage.  When 
the  Germans  discovered  that  the  birds  had  rings  on 
their  legs,  they  had  suspected  that  they  were  in- 
tended for  the  carrying  of  messages,  and  her  old 
mother  had  been  led  out  and  shot.  She  herself  had 
escaped  through  their  outposts  and  regained  the  un- 
conquered  territory.  What  had  happened  between 
the  time  of  her  escape  and  our  finding  her  she 
passed  over  in  a  phrase,  "  Eet  was  cold  and  un'appy, 
and  zen  you  were  kind." 

I  found  that  what  she  really  preferred  to  talk 
about  was  her  girlhood,  before  calamity  had  touched 
her;  so  I  et  her  talk  on.  It  was  over  there  in  Hallu 
Wood,  from  which  the  sniping  was  coming,  that  she 
had  gone  each  spring  with  the  village  children  to 
gather  primroses.  It  was  through  these  fields,  where 
corpses  were  now  lying,  that  she  used  to  walk  with 
her  pail  at  milking-time.  She  peopled  the  battle- 
field with  ghosts,  recreating  all  the  peasant  ways  of 
life  that  the  ferocity  of  war  had  terminated.  She 
made  me  see  the  old  priest  in  his  rusty  black  skirt 
and  round  felt  hat,  going  down  the  lanes  between  the 
little  cottages.  She  made  me  see  the  pool  in  the 
brook  where  her  mother  used  to  kneel  with  the  vil- 
lage women,  singing  and  banging  the  linen  white 
against  the  stones.  But  most  of  all  she  made  me  see 


THE   TEST    OF    SCARLET         267 

herself  —  Suzette,  with  the  gold-brown  plaits,  whom 
all  the  boys  used  to  follow  with  their  eyes,  before 
there  was  any  Bully  Beef  or  any  hint  of  catastrophe 
in  the  world. 

The  'phone  tinkled,  breaking  the  spell,  and  the 
telephonist  on  duty  called  to  let  me  know  that  I  was 
wanted  by  the  Major. 

"  Hulloa,  sir,  I  was  going  to  have  called  you  up. 
I'm  sending  Suzette  back.  There  is  nothing  for  her 
to  see  up  here." 

"  Don't  send  her  back  —  not  yet."  The  Major's 
voice  sounded  abrupt  and  agitated. 

"But  why ?" 

"  Here's  why.  Bully  Beef  is  lost  and  we  don't 
want  her  to  know  until  we've  found  him." 

"Lost,  but-    -" 

"  Yes,  lost.  I  know  what  you  are  going  to  say; 
that  he  can't  have  gone  far  and  must  have  been 
picked  up  by  some  other  unit.  The  fact  is,  how- 
ever, that  he's  as  completely  vanished  as  if  the 
ground  had  opened  and  swallowed  him.  Keep  her 
with  you  until  we've  made  a  proper  search.  We 
may  not  have  to  tell  her." 

That  night  instead  of  returning  with  the  runner  to 
the  battery,  Suzette  stayed  with  us  in  the  Front-line. 
When  night  had  fallen  and  the  'snipers  could  no 
longer  see  her,  she  sat  on  the  lip  of  the  trench, 
staring  out  into  the  darkness  towards  Fransart. 
Once  she  pointed  to  a  lone  tree  on  the  ridge,  saying 
that  she  could  see  the  village  from  there  and  asking 
me  to  allow  her  to  go  forward;  but  the  enemy  patrols 


268        THE   TEST    OF    SCARLET 

were  likely  to  be  abroad,  so  I  had  to  deny  ner. 
Several  times  I  heard  her  sigh  heavily  and  more 
than  once  I  could  have  sworn  that  tears  glistened  in 
her  eyes.  She  was  realising  all  that  she  had  lost. 
But  how  much  she  had  lost  even  she  did  not  know 
as  yet,  for  every  time  I  phoned  back  to  the.  battery 
and  questioned  I  received  the  same  answer;  there 
was  no  news  of  her  child. 

At  the  Front  men  are  missing  very  often  for 
weeks  before  you  find  a  trace  of  them.  They  stray 
into  the  enemy  lines.  They  get  wounded  by  a 
chance  shell.  Their  nerve  fails  them  at  the  moment 
when  they  have  accomplished  some  heroic  act  and 
they  desert.  We  had  one  man  who  brought  in  a 
wounded  officer  at  the  risk  of  his  life  and  was  recom- 
mended for  a  decoration.  Then  it  was  discovered 
that  the  man  could  not  be  found.  When  he  was 
found,  he  was  awarded  the  D.  C.  M.  for  valour  and 
court-martialed  for  the  cowardice  of  desertion.  We 
never  give  up  hope  when  a  man  goes  missing  until  he 
is  proved  to  be  dead.  But  with  a  civilian  it  is  dif- 
ferent; there  are  no  army  records  through  which  to 
trace  and  report  them.  Were  Bully  Beef  found 
killed,  it  would  be  nobody's  business.  At  the  Front 
one's  responsibility  extends  no  further  than  to  the 
men  in  khaki. 

Next  morning  on  enquiring  across  the  'phone,  I 
was  told  that  they  had  picked  up  a  rumour:  a  child 
had  been  seen  on  the  road  between  the  wagon-lines 
and  Death  Corner.  If  that  were  so,  it  would  mean 
that  Bully  Beef  had  wandered  out  of  the  wagon- 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         269 

lines  in  the  direction  of  the  battery  in  search  of  his 
mother.  He  had  come  up  once  or  twice  to  the  bat- 
tery-position with  the  ammunition-wagons,  and 
would  have  a  vague  idea  of  the  way.  Seeing  that  he 
had  not  arrived  at  the  battery,  it  was  likely  that  he 
had  gone  past  it;  in  which  case  he  must  be  some- 
where in  the  wheatfields  between  Death  Corner  and 
Fourquescourt.  A  detail  of  men  were  out  searching 
for  him,  led  by  Big  Dan. 

Then  something  arose  which  swung  my  thoughts 
clean  away  from  this  personal  anxiety.  To  the 
south  of  us  drum-fire  had  been  pounding  away  all 
morning;  we  guessed  that  the  French  had  been  going 
after  Noyon  once  again.  At  one  o'clock  we  got  a 
sudden  intimation  that  within  two  hours  we  must 
capture  Fransart  and,  if  possible,  the  railroad  which 
lay  beyond.  This  left  no  time  for  the  working  out 
of  the  usual  detailed  plans  for  artillery  co-operation. 
Moreover,  we  were  too  far  forward  to  dare  to  send 
our  instructions  back  by  telephone;  the  Hun  listen- 
ing-machines would  pick  up  our  conversations  and 
the  enemy  would  be  forewarned.  We  had  to  make 
out  a  rough  barrage-table  and  run  it  back  to  the 
guns  by  messenger.  When  that  was  done  it  was 
necessary  that  I  and  my  party  should  go  forward  to 
the  jumping-off  point  with  the  infantry,  since  the 
ridge  in  front  blocked  the  view  of  the  area  where 
the  fighting  was  to  take  place.  Suzette  volunteered 
to  accompany  my  party,  and  since  I  had  far  too  few 
signallers  for  a  show  and  no  time  to  obtain  more  I 
was  compelled  to  accept  her.  Leaving  one  man  in 


270        THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

the  trench  to  watch  for  our  messages,  we  struck  out 
along  the  Fouquescourt-Fransart  road  and  com- 
menced to  lay  in  wire  to  the  point  from  which  we 
proposed  to  observe  the  fight. 

It  was  a  brilliantly  hot  afternoon;  all  the  parched 
landscape  seemed  to  shift  and  quiver  in  the  dancing 
haze.  One's  clothes  rasped  the  flesh  like  sand-paper 
and  one's  eyes  were  blinded  by  perspiration.  We 
made  little  progress  with  the  laying  of  our  wire,  for 
every  few  minutes  we  had  to  go  back  to  mend  a 
break  caused  by  shell-fire.  At  last  we  abandoned  the 
idea  of  keeping  in  touch  with  the  rear  by  telephone 
and  determined  to  rely  on  visual  signalling.  We 
passed  the  ruined  village  of  Fouquescourt  on  our 
right.  It  was  seething  in  a  cloud  of  smoke;  the 
shriek  of  bursting  shells  was  like  the  wild  applause 
of  waves  breaking  on  a  rock-bound  coast.  We 
abandoned  the  road  and  bore  over  towards  the  left, 
till  we  came  to  an  old  Hun  trench,  which  ran  straight 
up  to  Fransart  and  passed  near  to  the  lone  tree  on 
the  ridge,  from  which  we  intended  to  signal  back 
our  messages.  As  we  stole  crouching  between  its 
shallow  banks,  we  noted  how  our  chaps  had  flung 
away  the  heavier  part  of  their  equipment;  it  was 
strewn  with  haversacks,  Mill's  bombs  and  tins  of 
bully.  Then,  when  we  almost  thought  that  we  had 
advanced  too  far,  we  came  across  them.  They  were 
kneeling  close  together,  panting  like  over-driven 
animals,  their  bayonets  gleaming  thirstily  in  the 
fierce  sunshine.  Many  of  them  were  reinforcements 
who  had  never  been  in  battle  before  —  men  who  had 


THE   TEST    OF    SCARLET         271 

been  sent  to  replace  the  heavy  casualties  of  our  en- 
counters. Their  faces  were  haggard  with  the 
struggle  against  terror  and  they  trembled  as  they 
waited  for  our  guns  to  open  fire.  One  could  pick 
out  the  veterans  among  them  at  a  glance  by  their 
fatalistic  carelessness.  Having  posted  a  signaller 
with  flags  and  a  lamp,  I  pushed  forward  to  where  the 
Company  Commander  was  waiting  to  lead  the  ad- 
vance. He  was  just  on  the  crest,  from  where  one 
could  look  down  on  the  approaches  to  Fransart. 
The  village  itself  was  still  hidden  from  sight,  but 
one  could  see  the  little  country  road,  running 
through  fields  straight  and  white  as  an  arrow  from 
Fouquescourt,  and  crossing  the  road  a  line  of  apple 
trees.  It  looked  very  sleepy  and  innocent.  One 
would  scarcely  have  been  surprised  to  have  seen 
blue-clad  peasants  rise  out  of  the  grass  and  com- 
mence to  sharpen  their  scythes.  There  was  no  hint 
of  murder  and  strife;  the  suspense  of  the  crouching 
men  behind  us  struck  a  false  note  of  melodrama. 
The  Company  Commander  consulted  his  wrist- 
watch,  counting  off  the  minutes. 

He  turned  to  me.  "  How  many  more  do  you 
make  it?" 

"  Six  minutes  more  to  go,"  I  replied. 

"  What  are  you  doing  when  the  show  has 
started?" 

"  I  follow  you  up,"  I  said,  "  and  keep  you  in 
sight.  If  you  want  to  send  any  runners  back,  you'll 
find  some  of  my  signallers  in  this  trench." 

Then  we  again  fell  to  watching  the  quiet  country 


272         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

with  a  kind  of  wonder,  counting  off  the  minutes  and 
the  seconds. 

There  were  only  two  minutes  left  when  the  in- 
fantry-officer jerked  my  elbow  excitedly,  "  Good 
God,  look  at  that!" 

"  At  what?" 

"  Get  your  glasses  out,  man,  they're  better  than 
mine.  That  thing  over  there,  moving  towards  the 
apple-trees  down  the  road." 

I  picked  up  the  object  with  my  naked  eye  when 
he  pointed.  It  was  a  mere  speck,  creeping  very 
slowly.  It  might  have  been  a  man  crawling,  only  it 
was  hardly  big  enough.  Our  riflemen  already  had 
their  sights  trained  on  it  and  their  fingers  on  the 
triggers,  awaiting  the  order  to  fire.  I  raised  my 
glasses.  What  I  saw  was  a  child,  with  chubby  legs, 
short  skirts  and  long  hair  to  the  middle  of  his  back 
like  a  girl's.  His  face  was  streaky  with  crying,  and 
he  kept  digging  his  knuckles  into  his  eyes.  Through 
the  glasses  he  looked  so  near  that  I  could  have 
touched  him  by  reaching  out  my  hand.  It  was  hor- 
rible to  see  him  out  there,  where  in  little  over  a 
minute  our  own  shells  would  be  falling.  Our  little 
Bully  Beef,  going  in  search  of  his  mother!  There 
wasn't  one  of  us  who  wouldn't  have  given  up  his  life 
to  restore  him  to  her,  and  we  were  powerless  to  draw 
him  back.  The  rifles  were  lowered  as  the  word  was 
whispered  round;  we  watched  his  progress  in  fasci- 
nated suspense. 

Suddenly,  rising  out  of  a  ditch  behind  him,  came 
another  figure  —  Big  Dan's.  Big  Dan,  who  had 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         273 

promised  to  take  care  of  him  in  his  mother's  ab- 
sence! He  leapt  up  and  ran  towards  the  enemy 
lines  down  the  ribbon  of  white  road.  He  must  have 
called  to  Bully  Beef,  for  we  saw  the  child  turn  and 
fling  out  his  arms  at  recognising  him.  Dan  picked 
him  up,  holding  him  tight  against  his  breast,  and 
stood  there  hesitating,  waiting  for  the  enemy  to 
take  their  revenge.  I  could  almost  hear  him  singing 
defiantly,  in  his  deep  base  voice, 

Old  soldiers  never  die, 
They  simply  jade  away. 

Then  a  hundred  yards  in  front,  out  of  the  ap- 
parent emptiness  a  Hun  stood  up  waving  a  hand- 
kerchief; beside  the  Hun  were  a  dozen  rifles  all 
pointing  in  Dan's  direction.  He  moved  forward, 
with  the  child's  face  looking  back  across  his 
shoulder.  As  the  first  of  our  shells  fell,  he  stepped 
down  and  was  lost  to  sight  in  the  German  trench. 
Like  a  squall  at  sea  our  barrage  descended  and 
everything  was  blotted  out. 

I  turned  to  the  signaller  who  was  nearest  to  me, 
"  Where  is  Suzette?" 

"  Behind  the  next  traverse,  sir." 

"  She  did  not  see?    She  does  not  know?" 

"  She  doesn't  know,  sir." 

"  Then  until  it  is  all  over  we  must  not  tell  her." 

It  took  five  minutes  for  the  enemy  retaliation  to 
come  back.  It  burst  like  a  hurricane  along  the  ridge 
and  along  the  shallow  hiding  place  in  which  we  were. 
No  man  could  hide  there  for  long.  The  only  safety 


274        THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

was  to  get  either  in  front  of  it  or  behind  it.  The 
Company-Commander  gave  the  signal  to  advance. 
With  the  men  running  and  crouching  low,  the  river  of 
bayonets  streamed  past  me.  Like  a  trickling  stream, 
I  watched  their  silver  gleaming  grow  more  distant 
above  the  tall  rank  grass  which  lined  the  lip  of  the 
trench.  God  knows  to  what  fate  they  were  going  or 
how  many  of  those  splendidly  fashioned  men  would 
remain  unbroken  by  sunset.  For  myself,  I  had 
other  things  to  think  about. 

My  job  was  to  keep  the  attack  in  sight  and  to  be 
sure  that  my  chain  of  signallers  was  in  touch  with 
the  rear,  so  that  I  could  get  my  orders  through  for 
the  directing  of  fire.  To  keep  the  attack  in  sight  it 
was  necessary  to  push  on  nearer  to  Fransart,  so  I 
took  Suzette  and  one  man  with  me,  leaving  the  rest 
of  my  party  strung  out  behind.  Where  the  apple- 
trees  crossed  the  road,  I  saw  our  men  leap  out  of 
the  trench  and  start  at  the  run  across  the  open.  In- 
stantly a  withering  fire  was  brought  to  bear  on 
them  from  a  little  village  in  advance  and  over  to 
the  right,  which  we  had  been  informed  had  been  in 
our  hands  since  morning.  They  began  to  go  down 
like  nine-pins,  pitching  forward  into  the  dust  and 
rolling  over  on  their  sides.  We  stood  up  to  signal 
back  the  news  of  what  was  happening,  but  the  first 
flapping  of  the  flags  brought  about  our  heads  a 
storm  of  bullets.  Our  only  chance  was  to  run  the 
message  back  through  the  enemy's  barrage.  The 
signaller  started  off  down  the  trench.  We  waited 
for  his  return,  but  we  waited  in  vain.  A  runner 


THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET         275 

reached  us  from  the  Company  Commander,  asking 
for  guns  to  be  brought  to  bear  upon  a  machine-gun 
nest  which  was  holding  up  the  advance.  I  had  only 
Suzette  left,  so  she  took  the  message  and  vanished 
into  the  enemy  barrage  behind  me.  Shortly  after 
she  had  gone  on  her  errand  another  infantry-runner 
met  me,  with  the  message  that  our  chaps  had  got 
through  Fransart  and  were  in  sight  of  the  railroad 
on  the  other  side,  but  that  the  enemy  machine-guns, 
which  they  thought  they  had  demolished,  were  firing 
in  their  backs.  None  of  my  men  had  returned.  I 
thought  I  knew  why,  for  the  ridge  was  boiling. 
There  was  no  one  left  to  send,  so  I  set  off  to  run 
the  information  back  myself. 

I  have  read  in  history  of  men  who  were  never 
afraid,  but  I  have  not  met  their  like  at  the  front. 
All  the  men  out  here  have  been  afraid  and  will  be 
afraid  again  to-morrow.  They  acknowledge  their 
fear,  and  conquer  and  despise  it.  The  difference 
between  the  brave  man  and  the  coward  is  that, 
whereas  the  coward  gives  way  to  his  imagination, 
the  brave  man  carries  on  as  if  he  were  untouched  by 
terror.  That  day  I  was  frankly  afraid.  As  I  en- 
tered the  barrage  every  nerve  in  my  body  went  on 
strike.  Shells  we're  exploding  on  the  very  lip  of  the 
trench;  the  shock  of  their  concussion  was  like  a 
blow  aimed  against  my  knee-joints.  I  felt  blinded 
and  faint.  The  smart  of  fumes  was  in  my  eyes ;  the 
reek  in  my  throat  was  choking.  I  glanced  across 
my  shoulder  to  find  that,  where  I  had  been  standing 
a  few  seconds  before,  the  trench  had  been  blown  up. 


276        THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

On  in  front  across  the  part  that  I  had  to  traverse, 
the  grass  was  scorched  and  smoking.  It  was  like 
being  pummelled  by  a  mob  of  invisible  assassins. 
I  staggered,  and  ran,  and  crawled,  and  panted;  my 
heart  was  filled  with  hatred  for  the  enemy  miles  be- 
hind at  their  guns,  who  bided  their  time  and  killed 
us  at  their  leisure.  Round  each  fresh  traverse  I 
expected  to  stumble  across  one  of  my  men  lying 
broken  and  sprawled  out.  Thinking  that  they  might 
be  in  hiding  I  called  their  names  again  and  again 
as  I  ran.  I  might  just  as  well  have  called  to  the 
clouds  in  a  storm  at  sea  from  a  row-boat.  I  was 
mortally  afraid  that  I  should  die  alone.  But  beyond 
my  terror  was  the  sense  of  my  obligation  to  those 
men  up  front,  cut  off  from  hope  by  the  machine- 
guns  firing  in  their  backs;  at  any  and  every  cost 
they  must  be  helped. 


X 

I  HAD  reached  the  very  heart  of  the  barrage, 
when  I  felt  a  hand  grabbing  at  my  leg.  I  looked 
down  and  found  two  of  my  signallers  and  Suzette 
crouching  in  a  hole  which  some  infantry-men  must 
have  scooped  for  themselves.  Had  they  not  seized 
hold  of  me  I  should  have  gone  past  them,  not  know- 
ing they  were  there.  Bending  down  I  shouted  an 
enquiry  as  to  whether  they  were  wounded.  They 
told  me  "No,"  but  that  it  was  impossible  to  signal 
since  every  time  they  tried  to  use  their  flags  they 
brought  a  hail  of  lead  about  their  heads ;  moreover, 
so  long  as  the  barrage  lasted  all  the  chain  of  signal- 
lers behind  them  were  held  hammered  against  the 
ground.  There  was  no  one  to  read  their  messages 
and  it  was  probable  that  more  than  one  of  the  re- 
ceiving-stations had  been  wiped  out.  Realising  the 
truth  of  what  they  said,  I  sat  down  beside  them  to 
recover  my  breath.  While  we  sat  there,  as  suddenly 
as  the  storm  of  death  had  broken,  it  lifted  and  leapt 
half  a  mile  to  the  rear  to  about  the  line  on  which 
battalion  headquarters  were  established. 

Getting  my  party  on  to  their  legs,  I  arranged  to 
send  all  my  messages  back  to  the  ridge  by  runner 
and  to  have  them  relayed  on  from  there  out  of  sight 
of  the  enemy  by  flag-wagging.  Taking  one  man  with 

277 


278        THE   TEST   OF    SCARLET 

me  and  Suzette,  since  she  knew  Fransart  well,  I 
again  pushed  forward. 

I  got  as  far  along  the  trench  as  to  where  the 
apple-trees  crossed  the  road;  there  I  halted.  The 
enemy  was  putting  up  an  intense  bombardment  just 
in  rear  of  the  village  to  prevent  the  approach  of 
our  reinforcements.  It  was  now  some  time  since 
any  messages  from  the  infantry  up  front  had  reached 
me;  I  began  to  get  nervous  lest  something  dis- 
astrous had  happened.  At  last  I  determined  to 
leave  the  man  behind  me  to  relay  orders,  and  to  go 
forward  with  Suzette.  I  had  another  reason  for 
wishing  to  get  into  the  village;  I  wanted  to  see  if  I 
could  find  any  traces  of  Bully  Beef  and  Dan.  From 
where  I  was  I  could  make  out  the  spot  where  the 
Hun  had  stood  up  and  beckoned  to  them.  There 
was  little  chance  that  they  were  alive,  but  I  was 
anxious  to  satisfy  myself. 

Watching  our  chance,  Suzette  and  I  popped  out  on 
to  the  roadway  and  commenced  to  run,  crouching 
low  and  zigzagging.  At  once  we  became  a  target 
for  the  sharpshooters  in  the  uncaptured  village  to 
our  right  flank.  About  our  feet  the  dust  began  to 
go  up  in  vicious  spurts  and  about  our  heads  we 
heard  the  sharp  pizz-pizz  of  bullets.  The  intoxi- 
cating excitement  of  danger  got  into  our  blood;  we 
called  to  each  other  and  laughed  as  we  ran.  God 
knows  there  was  little  enough  to  laugh  about;  of  the 
company  of  a  hundred  and  forty  odd  men  who  had 
attacked  across  that  open  space  before  us,  upwards 
of  a  hundred  were  lying  wounded  and  dead.  But 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET         279 

the  curious  psychology  of  battle  is  that  no  one  ever 
thinks  that  other  people's  misfortunes  may  befall 
himself.  While  the  wine  of  adventure  sings  in  his 
head  he  believes  himself  immortal.  That  is  the 
explanation  of  the  boys  who  go  cheering  across  the 
Tom-Tiddler's  ground  of  death. 

Breathless  and  still  laughing  we  reached  and 
jumped  into  what  had  been  the  Hun  Front-line. 
Here  the  laughter  was  wiped  from  our  lips  in  a 
second.  Everything  was  scared  and  silent.  Our 
attack  had  not  been  expected;  the  enemy  had  been 
caught  for  fair.  Our  wall  of  fire  had  descended  on 
him,  shattered  him,  choked  him,  buried  him.  The 
troops  in  this  part  of  the  line  had  been  Bavarians: 
jovial,  fresh-complexioned,  fair-haired  men.  We 
knew  them  of  old  —  genial  fellows,  with  fine  singing 
voices,  who  would  exchange  presents  with  you  out 
in  No  Man's  Land,  and  kill  you  treacherously  while 
your  present  was  still  in  their  hands,  without  any 
consciousness  of  broken  honour  or  unkindness.  Here 
in  the  polluted  summer  quiet  they  lay  in  every  con- 
tortion of  distress,  mangled,  smashed  and  ended, 
their  blue  eyes  wide  open,  staring  at  the  sky  and 
still  retaining  an  expression  of  panic  astonishment. 
They  had  come  to  war  as  we  had  come  to  war;  but 
they  had  not  expected  to  die.  That  was  what  they 
seemed  to  be  telling  us:  "Take  example  from  us; 
turn  back  in  time." 

We  stumbled  our  way  into  a  communication- 
trench,  and  hurried  on,  guessing  at  the  direction  our 
infantry  must  have  taken.  Here  the  brutality  of 


28o        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

what  had  happened  was  even  more  obvious;  in  the 
terror  of  their  flight,  the  enemy  had  become  jammed 
in  the  narrow  space;  they  had  fought  with  one 
another  to  escape  and  had  trodden  the  wounded 
into  the  ground. 

Now,  following  between  the  tunnelled  roots  of 
trees,  we  came  to  the  village  itself,  lying  in  the  heart 
of  a  little  wood.  The  trench  became  so  narrow  that 
our  equipment  caught  against  its  sides.  Grass  grew 
tall  along  its  banks,  and  scattered  through  the  grass 
were  wild  flowers.  We  had  glimpses  as  we  travelled 
of  cottage  gardens,  bee-hives  and  curtained  windows. 
But  we  were  glad  to  keep  our  heads  down,  for 
shrapnel  was  stripping  the  leaves  from  the  trees 
and  bursting  with  the  clash  of  cymbals  above  our 
heads.  We  were  walking  straight  through  our  own 
barrage,  and  still  there  was  no  sign  of  our  own  in- 
fantry. We  began  to  wonder  whether  we  had  gone 
beyond  them  or  whether  they  had  been  all  wiped 
out.  Behind  us  in  the  houses  of  Fransart,  which 
ought  by  rights  to  have  been  in  our  hands,  we  could 
hear  the  unmistakable  cough  of  German  machine- 
guns  at  work. 

On  the  far  side  of  the  wood  we  stumbled  on  our 
men  —  twenty-six  of  them ;  all  that  were  left.  They 
were  scattered  at  intervals  along  the  trench,  hugging 
the  ground.  As  we  stepped  over  them,  going  in 
search  of  their  officer,  they  paid  us  no  attention. 
They  were  most  of  them  green  troops  —  reinforce- 
ments, who  were  tasting  the  bitterness  of  battle  for 
the  first  time.  But  so  was  Suzette;  she  showed  no 


THE   TEST   OF    SCARLET         281 

signs  of  faint-heartedness.  Her  eyes  were  gray 
stars,  deep  and  quiet,  and  an  eager  smile  played 
about  her  firm  young  mouth.  In  looking  at  her  I 
was  reminded  of  Joan  of  Arc,  and  could  believe  that 
she  too  had  talked  with  heavenly  presences. 

Twenty-five  yards  ahead  there  was  a  trench- 
juncture,  at  which  a  lad  was  sitting  with  his  legs 
wide  apart  and  a  scarlet  hole  bored  through  the  cen- 
tre of  his  forehead.  No  one  had  gone  to  his  help; 
he  merely  sat  there  in  the  sunlight  with  a  puzzled 
expression,  watching  the  blood  splash  slowly  on  his 
hands.  When  I  made  to  cross  the  trench-juncture, 
one  of  the  men  pulled  me  back.  "A  Hun  sniper," 
he  panted  with  an  eloquent  economy  of  words;  "he 
gets  everyone  who  goes  there." 

"But  what's  the  matter  with  you  chaps?"  I  asked. 

"It's  the  booby-traps,  sir,"  he  said;  "they've 
blown  a  lot  of  us  up.  We  daren't  stir." 

Then  I  saw  what  he  meant.  Across  the  trench, 
beyond  where  the  wounded  man  was  sitting, 
cobwebs  of  wires  had  been  strung  a  few  inches 
above  the  ground,  attached  to  pegs.  They  looked 
innocent  enough,  but  were  just  at  the  right  height 
to  catch  the  feet  of  men  advancing  in  single  file. 
Should  anyone  trip  against  them,  the  jerk  on  the 
pegs  would  explode  a  series  of  mines. 

I  turned  to  the  man.  "Are  you  the  furthest  up  of 
the  attack?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Do  you  know  what's  on  ahead?" 

"The  railroad,  sir,  with  a  lot  of  freight-cars  stand- 


282         THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

ing  on  the  tracks.  The  Huns  are  hiding  behind  them 
and  taking  pot-shots  at  us." 

Just  then  the  Company  Commander  hove  in  sight, 
crouching  low  to  avoid  the  sharp-shooters  and  step- 
ping warily  between  the  wires  of  the  traps.  While 
I  spoke  to  him,  Suzette  was  dragging  the  wounded 
lad  back  from  the  trench-juncture  and  binding  up 
his  head. 

"A  pretty  rotten  mess,  I  call  it,"  the  Company 
Commander  growled  pantingly,  wiping  the  perspira- 
tion from  his  eyes.  "We  ought  to  have  had  tanks 
and  aeroplanes  to  do  this  job  and  twice  as  many 
men.  It's  sheer  murder.  My  men  haven't  a  one 
per  cent  chance  of  coming  out  of  the  show  alive; 
out  of  a  hundred  and  forty  I  have  twenty-six  left. 
The  enemy  gets  us  from  in  front  and  from  both 
flanks,  while  his  machine-guns  in  Fransart  are 
potting  at  our  backs.  And  what  the  devil  is  our 
own  artillery  doing  laying  down  a  barrage  behind 
us?" 

The  truth  was  the  infantry  had  advanced  too 
quickly,  without  first  ascertaining  that  their  gunners 
had  been  notified  of  their  progress.  They  had  also 
failed  to  "mop  up"  the  enemy  strongholds  before 
pressing  further  forward.  The  consequence  was 
that  they  had  left  pockets  of  resistance  on  every 
hand  and  that  their  own  artillery  was  cutting  them 
off  from  help.  Their  situation  was  desperate.  There 
was  only  one  remedy;  to  find  out  the  exact  loca- 
tions of  the  machine-gun  nests  and  to  send  the  in- 
formation back  to  the  guns,  that  they  might  knock 


THE   TEST    OF    SCARLET         283 

them  out  with  high  explosive;  to  send  back  orders 
to  our  artillery  that  the  barrage  should  be  raised; 
and  to  withdraw  our  troops  from  Fransart  and  sub- 
ject the  village  to  a  fresh  bombardment.  But  to 
what  place  could  we  safely  withdraw  our  infantry 
while  the  bombardment  was  in  progress  —  that  was 
the  question.  To  answer  this  question  the  Com- 
pany Commander  and  I  decided  that  a  further 
reconnaissance  was  necessary.  We  did  not  know 
what  lay  on  ahead  or  how  near  to  us  the  Huns  were; 
at  all  events,  it  could  not  be  much  more  dangerous 
further  forward. 

Leaving  instructions  that  the  men  should  keep 
well  under  cover  to  avoid  casualties  in  our  absence, 
we  set  out.  Treading  gingerly  up  the  trench  mined 
with  booby-traps,  we  came  to  a  turning  which  led 
off  to  the  right.  Here  things  were  comparatively 
quiet,  all  the  firing  passing  well  above  our  heads. 
We  followed  the  turning  for  about  two  hundred 
yards,  and  then  peered  stealthily  over  the  top.  Not 
fifty  yards  away  was  the  railroad,  with  the  freight- 
cars  either  standing  on  the  tracks  or  thrown  over 
on  their  sides  to  form  a  barrier.  Poking  out  from 
loopholes,  which  had  been  cut  in  the  woodwork,  were 
the  muzzles  of  rifles.  We  had  seen  all  that  was 
necessary;  we  knew  that  we  must  take  a  gambler's 
chance.  I  arranged  with  the  Company  Commander 
that  he  should  lead  his  men  still  further  forward  to 
this  trench  so  that  they  might  be  clear  of  our  shell- 
fire,  and  that  he  should  see  to  the  warning  of  our 
infantry  who  were  in  Fransart,  while  I  ran  the 


284        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

orders  back  to  the  guns  and  saw  to  it  that  rein- 
forcements were  sent  up  the  moment  our  bombard- 
ment ended. 

The  return  journey  to  the  signalling-station  where 
the  apple-trees  crossed  the  road,  was  as  hot  a  piece 
of  work  as  I  remember.  Suzette  took  it  as  coolly  as 
if  it  were  no  more  than  a  country-walk.  We  had 
to  pass  through  both  our  own  barrage  and  the 
enemy's.  Of  the  two  ours  was  the  worse.  In  Fran- 
sart  itself  the  trench  had  been  made  more  shallow 
by  direct  hits  with  shells.  As  we  wriggled  our  way 
on  hands  and  knees  over  debris,  we  could  see  the 
Hun  machine-gunners  blazing  away  from  the  attics 
of  houses  and  our  own  men  crawling  through  the 
undergrowth  to  rush  the  entrances  with  bombs.  I 
remember  discussing  with  my  conscience  the  de- 
cency of  permitting  Suzette  to  run  such  risks.  But 
I  had  no  choice,  for  if  I  were  killed,  she  might  sur- 
vive to  get  the  messages  back;  in  any  case,  when  she 
learnt  about  Bully  Beef,  she  would  receive  her 
death-warrant. 

We  found  our  signaller  where  we  had  left  him 
and  at  once  got  him  to  work  flag-wagging  the  infor- 
mation to  the  rear.  The  enemy  spotted  him  after 
the  first  few  minutes;  but  with  a  reckless  disregard 
for  his  own  safety,  he  carried  on  amid  a  hail  of  bul- 
lets till  the  task  was  ended.  A  quarter  of  an  hour 
later,  like  a  hurricane  let  loose,  the  levelling  of  Fran- 
sart  commenced.  The  wood  rocked  as  in  a  gale. 
Roofs  were  stripped  from  the  houses;  the  walls 
shuddered  and  knelt  slowly  down  like  camels.  This 


THE   TEST    OF   SCARLET         285 

concentrated  commotion  was  intensified  for  us  by 
the  contrast  of  the  breathless  stillness  of  the  sur- 
rounding country.  For  myself  I  was  picturing  the 
wild  scramble  for  life  of  the  Huns  whom  we  had 
seen  firing  from  the  windows  of  the  attics.  They 
were  brave  men,  who  had  purposed  to  sell  their 
lives  dearly.  To  kill  them  without  giving  them  a 
chance,  in  a  way  which  they  had  not  anticipated, 
was  fair;  but  its  fairness  did  not  make  it  less  appal- 
lingly dramatic. 

I  was  roused  from  these  thoughts  by  a  trembling 
at  my  side;  it  came  from  Suzette.  She  was  kneel- 
ing with  her  face  cushioned  in  her  hands  and  was 
weeping  violently.  I  bent  over  her,  asking  what 
was  the  matter.  "Eet  was  my  'ome,"  she  said. 

Suddenly  she  leapt  to  her  feet  and  stood  tiptoe, 
staring.  I  followed  her  gaze.  Out  of  the  wood 
where  trees  were  crashing  and  the  ground  was  bil- 
lowing itself  into  mounds,  two  men  were  advancing. 
They  walked  gropingly  and  the  arm  of  the  taller 
was  flung  about  the  other's  neck.  The  taller  man 
was  wounded  and  in  khaki;  his  companion  was  a 
plump  little  Bavarian  —  evidently  one  of  the 
machine-gunners  who  had  been  firing  in  our  backs. 
Every  now  and  then  we  lost  them  as  a  shell  burst  in 
their  path;  but  always  they  emerged  through  the 
smoke  of  the  bombardment,  dragging  themselves  by 
inches  nearer  to  the  comparative  safety  that  was 
ours.  Without  a  word  of  warning,  Suzette  burst 
from  me  and  commenced  to  race  towards  them.  It 
was  sheer  foolishness  to  venture  into  that  inferno 


286        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

where  every  second  seemed  to  be  a  man's  last.  I 
started  after  her,  intending  if  need  be  to  hold  her 
back  by  force. 

As  I  drew  nearer,  I  saw  what  her  sharp  eyes  had 
discerned  already,  that  the  wounded  man  carried  a 
child  against  his  breast;  then  I  recognized  who  he 
was.  At  that  moment  he  pitched  forward,  pulling 
the  Bavarian  with  him  to  the  ground.  When  the 
enemy  had  tottered  slowly  to  his  feet,  he  rose  alone 
and  had  transferred  the  child  to  his  own  arms.  But 
Suzette  had  reached  him  now;  she  snatched  the 
child  to  her  body.  Like  a  drama  played  out,  the 
last  shell  fell  and  the  bombardment  was  ended. 

I  glanced  behind  me.  Like  a  winding  stream,  fol- 
lowing the  serpentine  wanderings  of  the  trench,  I 
saw  the  gleaming  bayonets  of  our  reinforcements 
shining  above  the  tangled  grass.  Five  minutes  later 
when  I  re-entered  the  ravished  wood,  guiding  up  the 
supports  to  a  new  attack,  I  passed  Suzette.  She 
had  forgotten  that  she  was  dressed  in  khaki.  She 
sat  among  the  debris  of  splintered  trees  mothering 
Bully  Beef,  who  was  quite  unhurt,  while  the  plump 
little  Bavarian  smiled  down  on  her  in  mild  aston- 
ishment. At  full  length  lay  Dan,  his  old  soldier's 
face  composed  and  kindly  —  his  last  fight  ended. 
He  had  had  his  desire,  as  so  often  expressed  in  his 
favourite  song:  his  duty  accomplished,  he  had  simply 
"faded." 


XI 

IT  is  many  days  since  I  wrote  the  last  line.  This 
battle  goes  on  and  on.  We  are  drunk  for  want 
of  sleep  and  rest.  How  much  farther  can  we  drive 
these  weary  bodies  of  ours  without  their  col- 
lapsing? We  treat  them  as  things  of  naught  —  as 
mere  slaves  whom  we  lash  in  action  to  carry  our 
spirits  forward.  We  do  not  wash  them,  feed  them, 
clothe  them  with  any  care;  we  scarcely  spare  the 
time  to  keep  them  alive  while  the  victory  is  so 
nearly  within  our  grasp.  It  is  amazing  that  such  a 
multitude  of  diverse  men  should  be  agreed  to  have 
so  little  mercy  on  themselves. 

One  feels  that  there  are  two  armies  fighting,  for 
every  one  that  is  apparent:  the  external,  sullen 
army  of  heavy-eyed,  red-rimmed  flesh,  and  the  in- 
visible, eager,  clear-eyed  army  of  indestructible 
souls,  which  flogs  the  laggard  army  of  the  flesh 
forward.  Behind  us,  all  along  the  battlefields  of 
the  advance,  the  earth  of  men  lies  mouldering  and 
putrescent,  but  their  liberated  spirits  still  fight  be- 
side our  spirits,  treading  close  upon  the  heels  of  the 
enemy. 

The  test  of  scarlet!  We  used  to  speak  about  it, 
but  we  never  dreamt  that  it  could  be  such  a  test. 
We  never  knew  that  human  mechanisms  could  sur- 

287 


288        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

vive  such  ordeals  and  be  patched  up  with  courage  to 
endure  them  afresh. 

After  the  capturing  of  Fransart  our  corps  was 
drawn  out  and  French  troops  were  thrown  in  to 
hold  the  line  which  we  had  broken.  Then  the  ter- 
rible night-marches  re-commenced,  for  the  enemy 
must  not  know  where  we  were  going.  Again  we 
must  play  the  game  of  hiding,  and  vanish  entirely. 
We  must  be  the  will-o'-the-wisps  of  the  Western 
Front  and  disclose  ourselves  unheralded  at  a  point 
where  we  were  least  expected.  We  ourselves  must 
have  no  knowledge  of  our  destination;  our  job  must 
be  to  move  like  ghosts  and  to  cover  as  much  ground 
as  possible  under  the  shadow  of  darkness. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  stage  we  concealed  our- 
selves in  woods,  which  had  in  a  day  become  familiar 
to  all  the  English-speaking  world.  It  was  here  that 
our  cavalry  surrounded  an  entire  German  cavalry 
division,  entrained  and  on  the  point  of  pulling  out. 
It  was  here  that  our  infantry  captured  a  Hun  hos- 
pital, and  set  an  example  in  chivalry  by  offering  the 
nurses  the  choice  between  working  for  our  wounded 
or  a  safe  conduct  to  the  lines  of  their  own  country- 
men. It  was  here  that  Big  Bertha  was  found  —  the 
long-range  man-eater  which  had  tried  to  murder 
Paris.  But,  sweetest  of  all  memories,  it  was  here, 
after  the  long  drought,  that  the  rain  descended  and 
we  stripped  off  our  clothes,  stiff  as  boards  with 
sweat,  and  ran  naked  through  the  leaves  in  the  sting- 
ing downpour. 

On  the  evening  of  the  second  stage  we  passed 


THE    TEST    OF   SCARLET         289 

through  wheat-fields,  recently  re-captured  from  the 
enemy,  still  strewn  with  Australia's  unburied  dead. 
Here  troops  were  busily  at  work  gathering  in  the 
harvest  of  the  trampled  grain.  We  realised  then 
that  it  was  not  our  blood  alone,  willingly  as  it  was 
shed,  that  would  restore  peace  and  happiness  to  the 
world,  but  the  thrift  that  could  satisfy  man's  bitter 
cry  for  bread. 

How  many  marches  did  we  make?  How  often  did 
we  rest?  I  cannot  remember  now.  What  happened 
is  all  a  blur.  We  crawled  across  a  devastated  land 
through  a  fog  of  moonlight,  dawns  and  sunsets.  We 
gave  and  obeyed  orders  mechanically.  Our  per- 
ceptions were  dulled;  we  were  mad  for  sleep.  As 
soon  as  our  eyes  closed,  the  relentless  word  would  go 
round  to  harness  up  and  move  on,  always  to  move 
on;  but  to  what  were  we  marching? 

It  seemed  as  though  all  the  world  were  dead  and 
we  were  the  only  fighters  left.  Though  the  light 
failed  and  one  could  scarcely  see  his  hand  before 
his  face,  we  knew  by  the  heavy  staleness  in  the  air 
that  we  were  traversing  interminable  grave-yards, 
where  villages,  trees,  men  and  horses  lay  shallowly 
beneath  the  swollen  sod.  And  yet  we  knew  that  there 
were  other  fighters  besides  ourselves.  How  the 
rumour  reached  us  I  cannot  tell,  but  we  were  aware 
that  the  Americans  were  massing  before  St.  Mihiel, 
and  that  they  were  piled  up  in  their  thousands  be- 
hind Ypres.  Long  after  the  graciousness  of  sleep 
had  come  to  us,  they  would  tramp  in  their  millions 
above  our  quiet  beds;  we  should  feel  the  pressure  of 


290         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

their  heels  upon  our  foreheads  and  should  know  that 
they  were  carrying  on  our  work.  It  didn't  matter 
what  happened  to  us;  the  work  of  victory  would 
go  on  just  the  same.  The  Hun  would  not  triumph. 
We  should  not  have  spent  our  youth  in  vain.  In 
this  knowledge,  despite  our  weariness,  we  were  glad. 

I  have  a  curious  feeling  that  on  those  long  night- 
marches  I  held  conversations  with  men,  with  whom 
I  certainly  scarcely  exchanged  a  word.  At  all  events, 
though  I  did  not  speak  to  them,  I  knew  what  was 
happening  inside  their  heads.  Perhaps  it  was  that 
we  had  all  become  abnormal  with  the  strain  and 
developed  a  mental  telepathy  which  communicated 
thoughts  without  the  fatigue  of  words.  As  we 
moved  through  the  darkness  it  was  as  though  each 
brain  was  a  little  lighted  house,  behind  whose  win- 
dows shadows  came  and  went.  I  knew,  for  instance, 
what  Trottot  was  thinking.  He  was  brooding  over 
his  failure  to  disprove  his  reputation  for  being  yel- 
low. He  was  resentful  of  his  sergeant  who  had  kept 
him  back  at  the  wagon-lines  whenever  the  shell-fire 
was  intense  up  front.  He  was  hungering  for  the 
chance  to  do  something  so  reckless  that  everyone 
would  have  to  vote  him  brave  enough  to  be  lead- 
driver  of  the  gun.  I  knew  what  the  Major  was 
thinking:  at  the  head  of  the  column  he  was  thinking 
unceasingly  of  Suzette.  And  Heming,  bringing  up 
the  rear  with  the  transport,  he  was  thinking  of  two 
women  and  hoping  that  the  next  fight  would  be  his 
last. 

Sometimes  I  had  the  odd  sensation  that  there 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         291 

were  many  more  marching  with  the  battery  than 
would  ever  again  answer  the  roll-call.  I  was  riding 
at  the  head  of  my  section  half  asleep  about  mid- 
night, when  a  horseman  came  up  at  the  gallop  and 
reined  in  beside  me.  I  expected  to  hear  him  deliver 
some  message;  instead  he  dropped  into  a  walk  at 
my  side.  His  steel  helmet  shadowed  his  face.  I 
was  too  weary  to  speak  unnecessarily  and  took  him 
for  one  of  my  sergeants.  Perhaps  I  drowsed;  when 
I  again  noticed  him  the  moon  was  coming  out  from 
under  cloud.  Then  I  saw  that  he  was  wearing  an 
officer's  uniform.  That  piqued  me  into  wakefulness. 
I  leant  forward  to  get  a  closer  glimpse  of  his  fea- 
tures. As  I  did  so,  he  flung  his  horse  back  on  its 
haunches,  wheeled  to  the  left  and  vanished  in  the 
dark.  During  the  brief  space  while  I  gazed  on  him, 
I  recognized  Tubby  Grain. 

Other  men  in  the  battery  are  telling  similar  stories. 
They  have  seen  Big  Dan,  Standish  and  many  of  their 
fallen  comrades.  They  ride  on  the  limbers  and  the 
wagons;  they  plod  persistently  behind  the  guns. 
They  do  not  seek  to  attract  attention  to  themselves. 
They  do  not  talk  or  inconvenience  anybody.  Hav- 
ing died  in  a  foreign  land,  it  seems  normal  and  right 
that  their  spirits  should  still  accompany  us.  At 
dawn  they  vanish.  As  regards  Tubby  Grain,  since 
the  first  time  I  have  never  seen  his  face  —  only 
his  plump  little  figure  going  at  the  trot  through 
the  darkness  down  the  column. 

And  now  our  marches  are,  for  the  time  being,  at 
an  end.  Once  again  we  have  been  flung  in  as  the 


292         THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

hammerhead  of  the  attack.  They  say  that  Foch's 
principle  is  to  use  up  his  storm-troops;  he  never 
relieves  them  when  once  an  offensive  has  begun. 
We  no  longer  guess  —  we  know  the  task  that  lies 
before  us.  Last  time  it  was  the  saving  of  Amiens; 
this  time  it  is  the  breaking  of  the  Hindenburg  Line. 
Two  nights  ago  we  pulled  into  action  across  the  bald 
chalky  country  that  straddles  the  Cambrai-Arras 
road.  To  the  north  of  us,  rising  out  of  the  blackness 
of  the  Vimy  Plain,  we  could  see  the  ridge  which  was 
so  long  our  home  and  which,  because  we  were  not 
allowed  to  die,  we  guarded  with  so  much  impatience. 
Ah,  how  impatient  we  were  while  the  indignity  of 
not  dying  was  upon  us!  How  little  we  valued  the 
supreme  gift  of  life!  How  we  courted  death  in  raid 
after  raid  throughout  the  summer!  Had  we  known 
then  how  few  sunny  days  remained  for  most  of  us, 
how  much  more  gratefully  we  should  have  lived 
them.  We  have  come  back  for  what  will  probably 
be  our  severest  test  to  very  nearly  the  spot  whence 
we  started. 

Nobody  now  garrisons  what  was  once  regarded 
as  the  Gibraltar  of  the  Western  Front  Our  armies 
have  swept  forward  like  a  tidal  wave  and  are  beat- 
ing on  the  doors  of  the  cities  in  the  plain,  which  a 
month  ago  looked  so  distant  and  impregnable. 

Our  brigade  has  been  pushed  well  up  into  the 
point  of  a  narrow  salient  —  a  long  thin  cape  of  re- 
captured territory  which  projects  far  out  into  the 
enemy  country.  We  are  so  far  up  that  the  Hun 
balloons  are  actually  in  rear  of  us  and  watch  our 


THE   TEST    OF    SCARLET         293 

every  movement  from  either  flank.  Any  time  that 
they  choose  they  can  bring  accurate  fire  to  bear  on 
us.  We  have  been  in  some  murder-holes  before, 
but  this  is  by  long  adds  the  worst.  The  Hun 
game  is  to  obliterate  us  before  we  get  started.  All 
day  and  all  night  he  bombards  us  without  cessation. 
When  high  explosives  have  failed,  he  drenches  us 
with  gas. 

Now  that  we  are  here  there  is  no  use  in  trying  to 
disguise  either  our  presence  or  our  purpose.  The 
old  subterfuge  of  camouflage  is  of  no  avail.  The 
country  is  too  bare  and  too  much  overlooked  for 
any  precautions,  however  ingenious,  to  protect  us. 
Our  only  chance  is  to  hurry  up  and  get  the  attack 
begun  before  we  are  all  dead.  There  will  be  a  per- 
centage of  safety  when  we  begin  to  go  forward; 
there  is  none  in  sitting  still.  That  we  may  launch 
our  offensive  quickly,  we  are  making  every  effort. 
No  man's  life  is  precious.  Guns  and  ammunition 
drive  up  in  the  broad  daylight  and  are  knocked  out. 
No  sooner  are  they  knocked  out  than  others  are 
sent  forward  to  take  their  places.  The  waste  is 
stupendous.  Direct  hits  are  scored  on  ammunition- 
dumps;  there  is  never  an  hour  when  explosives  can- 
not be  seen  going  up  in  flames  —  never  an  hour  when 
horses  and  men  cannot  be  seen  rolling  in  their  final 
agony.  The  spectacle  is  too  ordinary  to  excite  us. 
We  are  too  much  fatalists  to  be  intimidated.  With  a 
misleading  display  of  callousness,  while  the  unlucky 
are  dying,  we  who  are  whole  carry  on  with  our 
preparations  for  revenge,  which  the  enemy  watching 
from  the  sky  does  his  utmost  to  prevent. 


294         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

Our  battery  is  in  a  narrow  valley  to  the  left  of 
what  was  once  a  town.  A  sign-board,  with  the 
name  painted  on  it,  is  its  only  means  of  identifi- 
cation: "THIS  WAS  A  TOWN."  It  is  the  same  with 
all  the  sites  of  former  human  habitation  which  lie 
behind  us;  if  it  were  not  for  the  sign-boards,  they 
would  be  indistinguishable  from  the  miles  of  shell- 
ploughed  waste  and  mine-craters  in  which  this 
abomination  of  desolation  abounds.  The  country  as 
far  as  eye  can  search,  lies  stark  and  evil  as  an  alkali 
desert. 

In  our  valley  there  is  a  stagnant  malodorous 
swamp,  close  to  which  we  have  dragged  in  our  guns 
so  that  their  muzzles  point  out  across  it.  It  was  once 
a  river  winding  through  a  pleasant  meadow,  but 
gradually  it  has  become  choked  by  the  refuse  of 
dead  things  —  dead  men,  dead  horses,  dead  hap- 
piness. God  knows  what  it  hides.  It  has  been  kind 
to  us,  nevertheless,  for  it  has  saved  us  many  cas- 
ualties. All  the  enemy's  rounds  which  fall  short  of 
us  plunge  harmlessly  into  the  liquid  mud.  We  hear 
them  coming  with  the  roar  of  express  engines.  We 
make  a  bet  where  they  are  going  to  burst.  Then  a 
column  of  filth  goes  up  from  the  swamp  and  we 
know  that  this  slough  of  despond  has  again  pre- 
served us. 

If  we  have  been  lucky,  others  have  been  less  for- 
tunate. The  valley  being  stiff  with  batteries,  there 
are  not  enough  good  positions  to  go  round.  One 
watches  the  shells  alight,  then  sees  the  men  rushing 
for  stretchers.  In  an  endless  chain  the  ammunition- 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         295 

wagons  drive  up,  fling  out  their  rounds  and  depart 
at  the  gallop.  Let  them  move  quickly  and  ever  more 
quickly,  there  are  always  some  of  them  that  get 
caught.  The  place  is  rapidly  becoming  a  shambles. 
No  one's  life  is  worth  a  minute's  purchase.  It  would 
be  interesting  to  know  what  premium  we  should 
have  to  pay  if  we  wanted  to  insure  ourselves. 

The  Major  has  just  told  me  that  the  attack  is  to 
be  launched  tomorrow  at  dawn.  It's  extraordinarily 
ambitious,  for  its  third  objective  is  fifteen  thousand 
yards  from  where  we  are  at  present,  and  it's  ul- 
timate goal  is  the  capture  of  Cambrai.  Between 
ourselves  and  Cambrai  stretches  the  most  strongly 
fortified  country  of  the  entire  German  Front  —  a 
country  naturally  fortified  by  marshes  and  canals 
and  made  doubly  impregnable  by  military  cunning. 
The  Hindenburg  Line  will  have  to  be  taken  first  be- 
fore any  general  advance  can  be  begun.  After  that 
certain  sacrifice-tanks  will  go  through  and  drown 
themselves  in  the  canals  to  make  a  bridge  over  which 
the  living  tanks  and  cavalry  may  push  forward  to 
conquest. 

We  can  stand  any  amount  of  pummelling  now 
that  we  know  the  worst.  It's  going  to  be  a  top-hole 
show  — "  Berlin  or  nothing;"  those  were  the 
Major's  words.  Judging  by  the  pleased  grins  on  the 
men's  faces,  it  won't  be  nothing.  We're  going  to 
finish  the  job  this  time  and  be  done  with  it  forever. 
Since  the  men  have  heard  the  news,  they've  gen- 
erated quite  a  "  home  for  Christmas  "  air  of  jollity. 
There  is  only  one  man  who  looks  sad  —  Captain 


296         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

Heming.  He  has  received  orders  to  start  for  Blighty 
at  once  to  give  evidence  in  the  case  of  Mrs.  Dragott. 

"  Don't  go  if  you  don't  want  to,"  said  the  Major. 
"  I'll  stand  by  you  if  there's  trouble.  Please  your- 
self." 

We're  wondering  how  he'll  decide.  It  depends  on 
his  evidence,  whether  it  would  save  or  condemn  her. 

If  it  would  condemn  her  and  he  still  loves  her 

A  man  can  live  worse  deaths  than  falling  honourably 
in  battle. 


XII 

IT  is  wonderful  to  lie  here  in  the  quiet  and  to 
know  that  it  is  all  ended.  Already  the  world  is 
saying,  "  Let's  forget  that  there  was  a  war."  That's 
natural  for  people  fatigued  by  contemplating 
tragedy;  but  which  is  the  more  inconvenient  —  to 
have  been  a  spectator  or  an  endurer  of  tragedy? 
It's  all  very  well  for  the  spectators  to  say,  "  It's 
over,  thank  God.  We're  safe  now,  let's  go  home  and 
be  gay  as  we  once  were."  But  how  can  we,  who  were 
comrades  in  the  ordeal,  ever  forget?  And  the  rest 
of  the  world  which  only  watched  from  afar,  what 
right  has  it  to  forget?  Now  that  it  has  been  saved 
by  other  men's  loss,  is  it  its  obligations  that  it  would 
forget?  Would  it  forget  the  pain  which  our  bodies 
will  always  remember?  Would  it  forget  the  cold, 
the  thirst,  the  weariness,  the  wounds,  the  forlorn- 
ness,  the  despairing  courage  which  it  did  not  share? 
Would  it  forget  the  dead  who  forewent  their  glad- 
ness, believing  that  their  immortality  was  secured 
by  the  gratitude  which  would  commemorate  their 
simple  heroism?  If  it  does  forget,  it  absconds  like 
a  blackguard  debtor,  cheating  both  us  and  the  dead. 
For  we  fought  not  for  victory  alone,  but  to  establish 
a  loftier  standard,  so  that  the  world  in  recalling  the 
price  we  paid  might  make  itself  kinder  and  better. 
As  I  lie  here  in  hospital,  six  stories  up,  with  the 
297 


298        THE   TEST   OF    SCARLET 

throb  of  London  beating  distantly  like  a  receding 
drum  beneath  my  window,  I  am  sometimes  un- 
certain whether  any  of  the  scenes  I  have  lived 
through  ever  happened.  The  war  grows  unreal  and 
vague.  Surely  those  ex-plumbers,  ex-bricklayers, 
ex-piano-tuners  with  whom  I  marched,  are  only 
imagined.  At  this  distance  it  seems  incredible 
that  such  men  should  have  found  the  fortitude  to 
make  themselves  the  knights  of  Armageddon.  They 
were  so  ordinary,  so  ignorant  of  their  true  great- 
ness, so  blind  to  the  magnanimous  courage  of  their 
martyrdom.  Ordinary,  ignorant  and  blind  they 
were;  perhaps  their  indifference  to  their  worth  was 
their  outstanding  glory.  Yet  these  everyday  men 
proved  not  by  ones  or  twos,  but  in  their  millions 
that  the  spirit  of  righteous  freedom  only  slumbers. 
In  remembering  their  example  never  again  can  we 
believe  ourselves  ignoble  or  that  the  race  of  sacri- 
ficial men  is  ever  ended. 

My  little  Major,  with  the  V.  C.  ribbon  on  his 
breast,  came  on  leave  from  Mons  the  other  day 
and  hopped  in,  merry  as  ever,  to  see  me.  He  was 
at  the  Front  when  the  Armistice  was  declared;  I 
was  eager  to  hear  about  it.  "How  did  the  men  take 
it?"  I  asked  him.  "Like  any  other  happening," 
he  said. 

"  But  wasn't  there  any  excitement  or  cheering?" 

"There  may  have  been,  but  I  didn't  see  it,"  he 

told  me.    "  We  were  marching  up  to  a  fresh  attack 

when  the  word  reached  us.     We  halted  and  drew 

in  to  the  side  of  the  road,  feeling  a  trifle  discontented 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET         299 

on  account  of  the  cold.  One  felt  warmer,  you  un- 
derstand, while  in  motion.  It  was  a  raw  day,  being 
November.  When  the  news  had  been  confirmed, 
we  turned  back  to  the  last  town  in  search  of  billets. 
The  chaps  cracked  a  smile  then,  when  they  dis- 
covered that  they  were  to  have  a  solid  night's  rest 
with  a  roof  above  their  heads." 

I  levered  myself  up  in  bed  and  stared  at  Charlie 
Wraith.  Despite  all  that  I  knew  of  the  Front,  I 
found  it  hard  to  credit  this  utter  lack  of  emotion. 
In  the  old  days  all  our  talk  had  been  of  when  the 
war  would  end  —  how  we  would  throw  aside  au- 
thority, cock  our  guns  up  and  fire  off  salvo  after 
salvo  to  the  heavens.  We  had  promised  ourselves 
that  we  would  go  over  the  top  for  a  last  time  as  a 
kind  of  sporting  luxury,  and  beat  up  the  Hun  just 
once  more  for  luck  to  prove  that  we  still  had  plenty 
of  ginger  left.  The  flying-men  had  asserted  that 
they  would  head  their  planes  in  the  direction  of 
Boche-land  and  send  them  off  unpiloted  to  put  the 
wind  up  the  enemy.  Every  mad  prank  had  been 
imagined  and  discussed  for  making  our  celebration 
memorable  and  effective.  From  the  Channel  to 
Switzerland  the  Front  should  blaze  and  be 
clangourous.  And  this  was  actually  how  the 
greatest  war  in  history  had  fizzled  out:  they  had 
drawn  in  to  the  side  of  the  road,  felt  cold  and 
turned  back  to  the  nearest  town  in  search  of  billets. 
Had  the  Major  told  me  that  the  men  had  shewn 
resentment,  feeling  that  they  had  been  baulked  of 
an  immenser  victory,  I  could  have  understood  that 


300        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

But  this  account  of  stoical  indifference  was  astound- 
ing. I  tried  to  put  some  of  my  surprise  into  words. 

"  If  they  weren't  glad,  perhaps  they  were  dis- 
appointed?" 

"  Not  disappointed,"  he  said.  "  We'd  been 
through  too  much  to  be  either  happy  or  sad.  I 
think  we'd  got  past  feeling  anything.  We  were 
sort  of  numb.  I'm  no  good  at  expressing  myself. 
Some  of  the  married  chaps  sighed  contentedly  and 
whispered,  more  to  themselves  than  aloud,  '  Well, 
that's  that.'  They  meant,  I  suppose,  that  they'd 
be  seeing  their  wives  again  presently.  But  most  of 
us  didn't  say  a  word;  we  just  carried  on  as  if  nothing 
out  of  the  ordinary  had  occurred." 

I  think  this  picture  of  dumb  subjection  to  duty 
made  me  realise  more  than  anything  the  sheer  cost 
of  victory  in  spiritual  energy  to  the  men  who  bought 
it  with  their  blood.  While  London,  New  York  and 
Paris  went  mad,  climbing  lamp-posts,  changing  hats, 
dragging  tin  cans  through  the  streets  and  con- 
verting themselves  into  impromptu  jazz  bands, 
these  men,  whose  valour  was  being  commemorated, 
pulled  in  to  the  side  of  the  road,  felt  cold,  and 
limped  back  to  the  nearest  town  in  search  of  billets. 
They  were  "  sort  of  numb."  They'd  been  through 
too  much  to  feel  either  happy  or  sad.  "  Well,  that's 
that,"  they  had  said,  and  thanked  God  for  the 
luxury  of  a  secure  night's  rest  and  the  comfort  of  a 
roof  above  their  heads. 

And  yet,  why  I  should  have  been  so  surprised  I 
don't  quite  know.  The  Major's  picture  was  con- 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        301 

sistent  with  everything  I  had  learned  of  the  fighting 
man  —  precisely  what  one  might  have  expected. 
That  I  should  have  been  surprised  only  proves  to 
me  how  thoroughly  normal  and  civilian  we  are  be- 
neath our  khaki.  Here  am  I,  a  few  weeks  out  of 
the  line,  finding  myself  amazed  at  conduct  which 
would  have  been  mine,  had  I  lasted.  "Well,  that's 
that"  —  it  sums  up  in  a  phrase  the  whole  philosophy 
of  the  Front,  which  teaches: —  "Don't  whine.  En- 
dure what  you  can't  alter.  Get  over  the  hard  bits  of 
the  road  by  pushing  forward.  Never  know  when 
you're  licked.  Never  be  elated  when  you've  won. 
Whether  you  win  or  lose,  don't  sit  down;  seize  on 
to  the  next  most  difficult  thing  that  you  may  con- 
quer. For  it's  not  the  winning  or  the  losing,  it's 
the  eternal  trying  that  counts  —  And  that's  that." 

It  is  the  "eternal  trying"  of  my  last  fight  that 
lives  most  vividly  in  my  memory.  We  were  in  that 
murder-hole,  you  will  remember,  to  the  left  of  the 
Cambrai-Arras  road.  Our  job  was  to  smash  the 
Hindenburg  Line  and  to  go  as  much  further  as 
our  strength  would  carry  us.  Our  objective  was  to 
be  the  ending  of  the  war  or,  in  the  words  of  the 
Major,  "Berlin  or  nothing." 

The  night  before  the  show  the  enemy  made  a  last 
determined  effort  to  knock  us  out.  We  had  distinct 
orders  not  to  retaliate;  our  first  round  was  to  be 
fired  with  the  opening  of  the  offensive.  So  we  had 
to  lie  down  in  silence  and  take  our  punishment. 

Shortly  after  sunset  the  trouble  commenced.  The 
enemy  must  have  run  forward  a  number  of  guns. 


302         THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET 

Without  warning  a  tremendous  bombardment 
opened  up.  It  was  as  though  the  walls  of  Heaven 
were  tumbling  about  our  heads.  In  our  narrow 
valley,  where  batteries  were  lined  up  like  taxi-cabs 
on  a  stand,  shells  of  every  kind  and  calibre  began 
to  fall  —  whizz-bangs,  incendiary,  high  explosive, 
gas.  Shooting  at  random  over  so  small  an  area  so 
densely  packed,  it  was  almost  impossible  not  to  hit 
something.  As  darkness  thickened,  the  night  be- 
came lurid  with  burning  gun-pits  and  ammunition. 
Against  the  dancing  flames  men  could  be  seen,  run- 
ning, gesticulating  and  working  like  fiends  to  put 
the  fires  out.  High  above  the  whistling  of  the  shells 
we  heard  the  ominous  throb  of  planes,  and  bombs 
commenced  dropping.  By  this  time  we  had  strug- 
gled into  our  gas-helmets  and  lay  crouched  in  little 
groups  in  the  bottom  of  shell-holes.  We  were  of 
no  use.  We  had  been  forbidden  to  reply.  We  were 
simply  waiting  to  be  slaughtered. 

I  don't  know  what  happened  at  the  other  batter- 
ies, but  our  Major  took  matters  into  his  own  hands. 
"We  shall  have  no  men  left  for  tomorrow  at  this 
rate,"  he  said;  so  he  ordered  the  chaps  to  get  out 
of  the  bombarded  area  and  to  scatter.  The  instruc- 
tions for  the  attack  had  just  come  in,  and  he  had  to 
make  out  the  barrage-tables.  To  do  this  it  would 
be  necessary  to  light  a  candle,  but  it  would  be  sui- 
cide to  show  any  lights  while  the  planes  were  over- 
head. Seizing  his  fighting  map  and  scales,  he  retired 
in  search  of  a  dug-out;  soon  only  I  and  one  sig- 
naller were  left.  We  had  to  remain  on  the  position 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         303 

to  answer  the  'phone  and  to  keep  in  touch  with  the 
rear. 

We  lay  there  hugging  the  ground.  We  had  had 
no  time  to  build  overhead  protection;  the  weather 
being  warm,  we  had  contented  ourselves  with  digging 
holes  three  feet  deep  and  spreading  over  them 
ground-sheets  to  keep  the  rain  out.  Our  sensations 
were  those  of  men  who  were  lying  on  an  erupting 
volcano.  The  earth  quivered  under  us  and  the  air 
was  thick  with  the  avalanche  of  falling  debris.  The 
valves  of  our  gas-masks  felt  choked  with  dust;  we 
were  well-nigh  suffocated  and  buried.  The  ground- 
sheets  above  our  heads  flapped  in  rags.  Stones  and 
bits  of  chalk,  thrown  up  by  the  concussion,  bruised 
us.  We  were  always  expecting  that  the  next  shell 
would  end  us.  They  came  over  with  the  galloping 
thud  of  cavalry,  ker-plunk,  ker -plunk,  ker-plunk. 
The  roars  of  the  explosions,  which  followed  the 
thuds  of  impact,  were  like  the  fierce  ha-has  of  ten 
thousand  maniacs. 

It  was  long  past  midnight  before  the  strafe  died 
down.  By  that  time  the  Hun  felt  fairly  confident 
that  few,  if  any  of  us,  had  survived.  One  by  one, 
through  the  altered  landscape,  our  men  crept  back. 
By  the  red  glow  of  dying  conflagrations,  they  set 
patiently  to  work  to  clean  their  guns  and  set  their 
fuzes,  so  that  all  might  be  ready  for  revenge.  We 
did  not  number  them  as  they  returned.  It  was  im- 
possible in  the  darkness,  but  we  knew  by  the  spat- 
tered human  fragments  that  in  the  surrounding  shell- 
holes  many  a  stout  fellow  had  gone  west. 


3o4        THE    TEST   OF   SCARLET 

A  little  whiteness  spread  along  the  eastern  hori- 
zon. We  stared  at  our  luminous  wrist-watches.  The 
second-hand  had  one  more  revolution  to  travel.  The 
whistle  sounded;  our  turn  had  come.  If  the  enemy 
had  supposed  that  he  had  exterminated  us,  his  dis- 
illusionment must  have  been  bitter.  There  were 
batteries  which  he  had  crippled,  but  none  that  he 
had  silenced.  Like  fiery  serpents,  even  from  where 
we  were,  we  could  see  our  bursting  shrapnel  hissing 
down  on  his  tormented  trenches. 

And  now,  when  it  was  too  late,  he  made  a  furious 
effort  to  complete  our  destruction.  He  tried  to  bury 
us  beneath  the  weight  of  metal  that  he  sent  racing 
through  the  semi-darkness.  Men  and  guns  were 
blotted  out  by  the  dust  of  explosions;  but  the 
whistle  for  each  new  lift  in  the  barrage  went  on 
sounding.  It  seemed  a  miracle  that  our  shells  did 
not  collide  with  his  in  mid-air. 

His  anger  was  not  for  long.  Of  a  sudden,  from 
intensity  it  died  down  into  nothing.  We  knew  what 
that  meant:  the  bayonets  of  our  infantry  were  toss- 
ing human  hay  in  his  trenches,  our  heavy  artillery 
was  raking  his  batteries,  and  our  tanks  were  going 
forward,  tracking  down  their  prey  like  blood-hounds. 

Dawn  strengthened.  From  a  shadowy  hint  of 
whiteness  it  became  a  pillar  of  flame,  from  a  pillar 
of  flame  a  shaft  of  dazzling  brightness.  We  gazed 
on  the  night's  work.  It  was  as  though  a  gigantic 
plough  had  furrowed  the  valley  from  end  to  end. 
Guns  leaned  over  on  their  axles  with  their  wheels 
smashed;  the  men  who  should  have  been  serving 


THE   TEST   OF   SCARLET        305 

them  lay  scattered  about,  half  buried  and  scarcely 
recognisable.  Charred  piles  of  ammunition  smoked 
lazily  and  occasionally  sputtered  like  damp  fire- 
works. We  marvelled  how  we  had  escaped;  all  the 
guns  of  our  battery  were  still  in  action.  Again  it 
must  have  been  the  swamp  that  had  saved  them. 

We  could  estimate  the  progress  that  our  infantry 
were  making  by  the  orders  to  lengthen  our  range, 
which  we  kept  receiving  across  the  'phone.  They 
were  going  very  rapidly.  The  enemy  resistance 
could  not  have  been  as  strong  as  had  been  expected. 
We  judged  that  the  first  wave  of  our  attack  must 
be  almost  through  the  Hindenburg  Line.  Soon  it 
would  be  necessary  for  us  to  hook  in  and  move  for- 
ward if  we  were  not  to  get  out  of  touch. 

It  was  eight  o'clock  when  our  teams  arrived  with 
Heming  riding  at  their  head.  None  of  us  com- 
mented on  his  presence.  He  had  disobeyed  the 
summons  to  England  and  was  taking  one  last  chance 
in  battle  of  maintaining  his  silence  forever.  We 
knew  then  that  the  woman  whom  he  had  loved  was 
guilty  —  that  whatever  he  could  have  said  would 
have  told  against  her.  His  face  had  a  sterner  ex- 
pression than  I  had  ever  seen  it  wear;  it  looked 
gray  and  haggard.  Only  his  eyes  had  their  steady 
gaze  of  untroubled  brave  resolution.  He  rode 
up  to  the  Major  and  reported  the  number  of 
the  men  and  horses  killed  and  wounded  that  night 
at  the  wagon-lines.  "It  was  the  bombing  planes  did 
it,"  he  said;  "they  were  right  on  top  of  us.  We're 
short  of  gunners  now,  so  I  had  to  bring  Suzette." 


Then  he  took  his  instructions  and  rode  back  to  the 
teams  to  keep  them  out  of  shell-fire  till  they  were 
needed. 

An  hour  went  by.  The  Major  had  got  mounted 
and  gone  forward  to  a  windmill,  just  behind  the 
furthest  point  of  our  attack,  from  where  he  could 
watch  developments  and  send  back  for  us  the  mo- 
ment we  were  required.  He  was  determined  this 
time  to  be  in  the  thick  of  it.  His  last  words  had 
been  that,  if  our  Headquarters  tried  to  hold  us  back, 
we  were  to  let  our  wires  to  the  rear  go  down  and 
obey  him  only;  he  would  be  answerable. 

Already  several  batteries  had  hooked  in  a.nd  dis- 
appeared over  the  crest  at  the  gallop.  We  were  be- 
ginning to  feel  impatient  and  fearful  lest  once  again 
we  were  to  see  very  little  of  the  fun,  when  the  Ma- 
jor's orderly  came  in  sight  taking  shell-holes  like  a 
steeple-chaser.  Pulling  his  horse  up  on  its  haunches, 
he  delivered  a  written  message: 

"Our  infantry  have  broken  the  Hindenburg  Line, 
but  the  enemy  are  massed  behind  it.  They've  led 
our  chaps  into  a  trap  and  are  putting  up  their  real 
fight  in  their  support- trenches.  Our  tanks  have 
gone  on  and  cannot  help.  Much  of  our  artillery 
fire  is  at  too  long  range  to  be  effective.  Close  sup- 
port is  absolutely  necessary.  Our  infantry  are  being 
pushed  back.  Move  the  battery  up  by  sections, 
Captain  Heming  taking  the  leading  section  and  you 
the  rear,  with  an  interval  of  at  least  ten  minutes 
between  them.  We  are  practically  in  sight  of  the 
Boche,  so  leave  twenty  yards  between  your  guns 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         307 

and  wagons.  It's  a  sacrifice  job,  so  expect  a  hot 
time.  My  orderly  will  show  Captain  Heming  where 
to  come  into  action." 

Heming  came  up  just  as  I  had  finished  reading 
the  crumpled  slip  of  paper.  I  handed  it  to  him.  He 
glanced  it  through  in  silence.  His  face  broke  into 
a  smile.  "It  may  be  death,"  he  said. 

He  signalled  for  his  teams  to  come  up.  While 
they  were  hooking  in,  he  spoke  with  me  quietly. 
"Once  on  the  Somme  I  asked  you  to  give  a  message 
to  a  lady  if  I  were  wiped  out.  I  wasn't;  but  I  may 
be  to-day.  If  that  happens,  I  want  you  to  give  her 
the  same  message.  Tell  her  that  I  did  everything 
that  she  might  feel  proud  of  our  friendship."  He 
met  my  eye  and  looked  away.  "In  years  to  come 
she'll  need  something  to  make  her  feel  proud,  so 
don't  spoil  it.  Don't  tell  her  about  Suzette.  .  .  . 
But  you  chaps,  however  many  of  you  are  left  — 
you'll  take  care  of  Suzette.  I  know  that!" 

"We'll  take  care  of  Suzette,"  I  said. 

"And  my  message ?" 

"I'll  deliver  your  message." 

The  guns  were  pulling  out.  I  watched  them  file 
off  round  the  swamp,  followed  by  their  ammunition- 
wagons.  When  the  last  wagon  was  clear,  Heming 
waved  his  hand  to  me. 

"  Good  luck,"  I  shouted. 

He  galloped  off  to  the  head  of  the  column.  Then 
I  noticed  that  someone  was  running  to  catch  up  be- 
hind. For  a  moment  I  thought  it  was  a  gunner  of  the 
detachments;  then  I  recognised  Suzette.  They  went 


3o8        THE    TEST   OF    SCARLET 

at  the  walk  across  the  valley;  as  they  neared  the  top 
of  the  crest  on  the  other  side,  shells  began  to  burst. 
They  were  now  a  target  for  the  enemy,  and  broke 
into  first  the  trot  and  then  the  gallop.  In  a  cloud 
of  dust  and  smoke  they  disappeared  from  sight. 
Ten  minutes  later  the  centre  section  went  forward. 
About  fifteen  minutes  after  that  I  pulled  out,  taking 
with  me  the  remaining  section.  I  glanced  back  at 
my  men.  We'd  been  in  tight  corners  before  to- 
gether. I  would  take  a  bet  on  how  they  would  be- 
have. Among  them  all  there  was  only  one  query- 
mark  —  Driver  Trottrot.  He  was  riding  lead  of  one 
of  the  first-line  wagons.  If  he'd  got  over  his  fear 
of  shell-fire,  within  the  next  hour  he  would  have  his 
chance  to  prove  it. 

There  was  only  one  road  by  which  to  climb  the 
crest;  it  had  been  well  advertised  by  the  other  bat- 
teries. As  we  reached  the  top,  we  were  skeletoned 
against  the  sky-line  and  hell  broke  loose  about  us. 
Setting  spurs  to  our  horses,  we  went  off  at  the  wild 
tear.  With  the  vehicles  swaying  and  thundering 
behind  us,  we  passed  over  the  first  line  of  resistance, 
which  our  infantry  had  captured  that  morning.  The 
air  was  heavy  with  the  smell  of  gas,  but  worse  than 
the  gas  were  the  incendiary  shells,  which  sent  up 
showers  of  liquid  fire  where  they  struck,  maddening 
the  horses. 

On  account  of  the  trench-systems  it  was  impos- 
sible to  go  across  the  open  country,  so  we  had  to 
bear  to  the  right  and  come  down  on  to  the  Cambrai- 
Arras  road.  It  was  crowded  with  transport  —  tanks, 


THE   TEST    OF    SCARLET        309 

pontoons  and  lorries  full  of  engineers,  being  rushed 
up  to  bridge  and  hold  the  canals  in  the  belief  that 
the  attack  was  still  going  ahead.  We  had  to  slow 
down  to  the  crawl  in  places.  The  road  was  a  sure 
target  for  the  enemy;  he  knew  that  it  was  our  one 
means  of  advance  and,  consequently,  gave  it  con- 
stant attention.  One  vehicle  struck  caused  a  block 
in  the  traffic  for  half  a  mile;  men  worked  furiously 
among  the  falling  shells  to  drag  the  cripples  to  one 
side.  In  the  ditches,  where  they  had  fallen  that 
morning,  dead  horses  and  men,  both  the  enemy's  and 
ours,  lay  crushed  and  crumpled.  No  one  wished  to 
pay  heed  to  them;  we  did  our  utmost  to  ignore  them 
as  though  they  were  utterly  negligible.  But  they 
seemed  to  cry  out  to  us,  appealing  for  our  pity; 
then,  when  we  shuddered,  threatening  us  with 
the  same  terrifying,  uncared-for  Nemesis.  When 
we  let  our  eyes  rest  on  them  they  were  lying  harm- 
less and  quiet,  but  we  had  the  feeling  that  behind 
our  backs  they  sat  up  with  their  wounds  gaping, 
and  gnawed  their  fists  at  us.  Our  animals  shied  at 
the  corpses,  breaking  into  a  sweat  and  becoming  un- 
manageable. If  the  dead  were  not  a  sufficient  warn- 
ing of  what  war  could  do  to  us,  there  was  always  the 
crimson  returning  tide  of  battered  men,  washing 
grievously  past  us  back  to  Arras  like  a  stream  of 
blood. 

Patriotism  and  glory!  They  sounded  empty 
words  compared  with  life.  There  was  only  one 
word  that  was  an  incentive  to  keep  us  steady  — 
pride.  We  might  survive;  we  did  not  wish  to  live 


3io        THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

with  selves  who  would  have  to  hang  their  heads. 
Yes,  and  there  was  another  incentive  —  duty:  the 
thought  of  comrades  still  further  forward,  to  whom 
the  roar  of  our  eighteen-pounders  would  be  happy 
as  a  peal  of  bells. 

Crawling,  halting,  trotting  for  brief  spells,  we  had 
travelled  about  four  thousand  yards  when  we  saw 
the  windmill  on  the  rise,  from  which  the  Major  was 
observing,  and  in  front  of  the  windmill  the  Hinden- 
burg  Line  which  we  were  supposed  to  have  smashed. 
In  the  plain  which  stretched  behind  the  mill,  our 
sacrifice  batteries  were  strung  out,  belching  fire. 
Across  the  plain  our  supporting  infantry  were  trick- 
ling up  in  Indian  file,  winding  their  way  about  the 
batteries  in  action  and  side-stepping  to  avoid  the 
bursting  shells. 

Suddenly  we  understood,  as  though  the  meaning 
of  what  for  four  years  we  had  been  doing  were  being 
revealed  to  us  for  the  first  time.  In  a  flash  we  saw 
war's  glory,  its  wickedness,  magnanimity,  challenge 
and  the  amazing  fortitude  it  begets  in  men.  It 
taught  unbrave,  ordinary  chaps  how  to  try  and  go 
on  trying,  long  after  hope  seemed  at  an  end.  Each 
one  of  those  batteries  out  there  in  the  plain  was  like 
a  "  Little  Revenge,"  surrounded  and  dragged  down 
by  weight  of  numbers ;  but  out  of  sheer  self-respect- 
ing stubbornness  it  never  ceased  spurting  fire.  Every- 
one of  those  infantry,  plodding  stolidly  forward, 
was  quaking  at  the  thought  of  the  Judgment  Day 
up  front;  but  each  one  of  them  would  rather  die  a 
thousand  deaths  than  shew  the  white-feather.  The 


sight  was  blinding,  maddening,  intoxicating.  If 
those  chaps  didn't  mind  dying,  why  should  we  hang 
on  to  life? 

Leaving  the  first-line  wagons  parked  by  the  road- 
side, we  set  off  at  the  gallop  with  the  guns  and  firing- 
battery  wagons  to  where  we  saw  Heming's  four  guns 
blazing  away  in  the  sunshine.  The  infantry  stood 
aside  to  give  us  passage.  They  waved  their  caps 
and  shouted.  We  could  not  hear  a  word  of  what 
they  said;  we  only  saw  their  lips  moving.  The 
pounding  of  our  going  drowned  all  other  sounds. 

We  swung  into  line  on  Heming's  right,  flinging 
our  horses  back  on  their  haunches.  Before  we  had 
had  time  to  unhook,  a  shell  had  burst  directly  under 
the  centre  team  of  A.  Sub's  gun;  men  and  horses 
were  rolling.  We  dragged  our  drivers  out  and  had 
to  shoot  the  horses  before  we  could  get  the  gun  into 
action.  Then  Bedlam  broke  loose. 

Whether  it  was  that  the  enemy  had  seen  the  heads 
of  our  horsemen  above  the  rise  and  had  got  the  line 
on  us  over  open  sights,  or  whether  he  had  seen  the 
flash  of  Heming's  firing  before  we  had  come  up,  we 
could  not  tell.  In  any  case  he  was  upon  us  now.  All 
along  the  line  of  guns  his  hurricane  of  shells  began  to 
burst.  They  fell  on  top  and  plus  and  minus  of  us. 
shutting  us  off  from  help.  From  our  wagon-lines 
on  the  roadside  our  peril  had  been  sized  up  and 
teams  were  coming  at  the  gallop  to  drag  us  out. 
They  never  got  as  far  as  us.  Two  hundred  yards 
short,  as  though  he  had  been  potting  at  them  with 
a  rifle,  the  enemy  caught  them,  and  they  crashed 


3i2         THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET 

and  sank  in  a  cloud  of  dust.  No  sooner  were  they 
down  than  fresh  teams  dashed  out.  By  his  riding  I 
recognised  the  lead-driver  of  the  foremost  team  as 
Trottrot.  At  last  his  opportunity  had  come.  He 
was  winning  his  spurs  and  proving  to  all  the  watch- 
ing world  that  he  was  not  yellow.  He  would  never 
reach  us.  He  was  riding  towards  certain  and  useless 
death.  He  was  almost  in  the  storm-centre,  when  I 
ran  out  and  signalled  him  back. 

In  the  middle  of  the  battery,  as  cool  and  collected 
as  if  nothing  were  happening,  Heming  sat,  his  map- 
board  on  his  knees.  Suzette  knelt  beside  him,  doing 
his  pencilling  and  listening  through  the  'phone  to  the 
directions  of  the  Major  from  up  front.  Now  and 
then  he  looked  up  to  give  his  orders  for  new  ranges 
and  angles;  the  expression  on  his  face  was 
triumphant.  Every  so  often  he  left  his  map-board 
and  walked  among  the  men,  encouraging  them, 
"  Stick  to  it,  boys.  We've  got  to  blow  the  enemy 
out  of  the  wire.  It  won't  take  much  longer  now." 

But  the  boys  were  growing  fewer.  There  were 
less  and  less  of  us  to  hear  him  every  time  he  spoke 
to  us.  Three  guns  had  been  knocked  out,  and  their 
crews  were  lying  dead  about  them.  Now  there  were 
only  two  left;  now  only  one. 

Suzette  was  setting  fuzes.  Heming  was  loading 
and  putting  on  the  ranges.  I  was  laying  and  firing. 
We  were  all  three  wounded.  We  three  had  taken 
the  places  of  the  dead  gunners  and  seemed  to  have 
been  going  through  these  motions,  alone  and  me- 
chanically, keeping  the  remaining  gun  in  action,  ever 
since  eternity  had  begun. 


THE    TEST    OF    SCARLET         313 

Something  happened  to  end  it  —  a  roar,  a  sheet 
of  flame;  then  darkness. 

A  stream  of  warmth  was  trickling  down  my  face 
and  neck.  I  opened  my  eyes.  The  gun  was  lying 
over  on  its  side;  like  worshippers  at  mass,  Heming 
and  Suzette  were  kneeling  with  clasped  hands,  their 
faces  towards  the  red  altar  of  the  enemy.  As  I 
watched,  their  faces  drew  together  and  his  arm  went 
about  her.  Their  action  became  symbolic;  it  was 
like  England  greeting  France  in  the  hour  of  agony. 

Everything  faded.  The  shock  and  clamour 
drifted  into  silence.  The  test  of  scarlet  was  ended. 

Here  in  the  white  orderliness  of  a  sheeted  bed, 
with  the  accustomedness  of  peace  on  every  hand,  it 
is  strange  to  remember. 

THE   END 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBfl 


A    000  038  ~i 


